Castles In The Air
by Milkbottle
Summary: It was a mess of a delusion within another and if you looked through the peephole, you'd see the dystopia closing in. And there I was, only an ambitious Sixth Year in the middle of it all, and I wasn't up for anything serious. But then again, life was a convoluted weave of twists and turns, and fate was fate. I couldn't really protest, could I?—ABANDONED. See profile for more info.
1. Chapter 1

Given the monumentality of the situation I was facing, I do suppose you could find it within yourself to excuse my inclination to panic as of this unfortunate moment.

My footsteps resounded as I paced the smooth hardwood floors with a cloud of alarm following me everywhere I went. My lips were red from a shitload of nervous biting and my nails were nonexistent stumps, chipped, wet and cold. My left eyebrow, not to mention, was faithful in the regularity of its twitching and I was all but keeling over with extreme tension.

You see, I'd been a bit careless with one of my most precious belongings.

I seemed to have misplaced my wand.

My beautiful 11", rowan and unicorn hair core wand ('swishy!' emphasizes an imaginary Ollivander from the inner depths of my mind) was currently missing from the front pocket of my trusty leather backpack, which was where I had last left it about half an hour ago.

And I'd looked everywhere, I swear.

Perhaps now was the best time to call in Hurricane Alana.

"MOM!" I screamed at the top of my voice. "Mama, I kind of—"

Wait, was that what I thought it was?

I trailed off slightly as I noticed the tip of my wand peeking innocently from behind my room's mahogany door.

Everytime.

"What is it this time?" Alana Montgomery's exasperated voice floated up the stairs. "Don't tell me you've lost something again –"

"Lost something?" I pooh-poohed unconvincingly. "Don't be silly, mama. It's cool, just a false alarm. Nothing to worry about!"

There's a small pause. "You're sure," she said sounding exceedingly skeptical, which I found mildly offensive.

"Absolutely positive," I grinned, but she couldn't see that, so I made sure to include all the confidence I possessed into that minimal statement.

Mama took a second to respond. I assumed that she was busy sighing at her daughter's apparent idiocy. "If you say so. Breakfast is ready, by the way."

"Right, of course! Five minutes, I'll be right downstairs!" After hurriedly stuffing everything into my trunk, I quickly deposited a few of my books into my backpack and then stared into the mirror by the side for one last time.

I hastily tugged the grey T shirt over my little black shorts and gave the brunette in the mirror a tiny smile. Her ice blue eyes glinted with good humor, and after allowing myself one last vain glance, I hurriedly picked up my stuff and fell down the creaky wooden stairs.

"How long?" I asked as I deposited a monstrous spoonful of cereal into my hungry mouth. Mama glanced at the clock on the side before giving me an amused smile. "About five minutes if you don't want to be late again."

"Funny," I snorted and scooped another mountain of food into my waiting mouth. "Ben ready yet?"

"Have been for half an hour now," the thirteen-year-old's voice emerged from behind. I peered over the back of my chair to see him sprawled across the kitchen floor with his wand held between his teeth as he fiddled with a piece of bacon in his amusingly feminine hands.

"Hi," I told him through a mouthful of food.

"Shut up and eat, we're getting late" he told me in reply.

Wasn't he absolutely charming?

I gave him a glimpse of my undying affection by depositing a light kick into where his spleen roughly resided.

My brother's cries of pain were all but ignored as mother and sister looked at each other with entertained smiles.

"I hate you," he told me.

"Your sentiments are acknowledged and treasured within the deepest pits of my mind," I told him with epic sass.

"Eat your breakfast," Mama laughed.

I happily obliged.

Ten minutes later and we were all piled into my mother's cosy little five-seater as we made our way to good old King's Cross, and it was about 10:45 AM when we were rolling across the platforms to get to that spot between 9 and 10. Ben gave Mama a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek before hightailing it out of there and into that nondescript brick wall. I turned around to give my mother a bone-crushing hug.

"Be good," she told me laughingly as she placed her lips onto my tiny little forehead. Her flowery perfume clung to the air as I gave her my most innocent smile. "Don't I always?"

"And take care of Benny!" she said with a chuckle.

"I promise to," I snorted.

"I love you," she informed me.

"As I do, you," I grinned grandly before giving her one last kiss on the cheek and then walking into the barrier, away from my muggle mother as she slowly disappeared from sight.

Platform 9 and 3 quarters was a comfortingly familiar sight—incredibly hectic, incredibly suffocating, and incredibly delightful all at the same time. The smoke emanating from the chimney of the magnificent Hogwarts Express wafted through the loud, happy atmosphere, giving the entire scene a dull glaze of magic and mystery, while tiny little first years stared at the environment around themselves with eyes as wide as freshly baked cookies. Teary-eyed parents and students alike hugged each other in greeting and in goodbye, and sounds of laughter flitted through the air like pollen in a warm summer breeze.

A wide grin spread across my lips when I caught sight of a familiar face in the crowd. The blonde's periwinkle blue eyes widened in recognition before a similar grin appeared on her face as well. "Lee!" she called out in excitement, dropping her trunk onto the ground and immediately rushing over to give me a mild I-can't-feel-my-heart-beating-anymore-oh-my-god-halp sort of hug.

"Cas," I gasped as the life was squeezed out of my lungs within the span of a microsecond. "How're you doing, you silly git?"

Dorcas Meadowes let me suffocate for a few more seconds before extricating herself and then taking a tiny step back to give me a grin that almost split her entire face. "Lee Montgomery, my, my—you look _good_. How were your holidays?"

"Oh, incredibly entertaining," I gave her a humorous grin. A sudden brush against my legs made me look down in slight apprehension, before relaxing when I noticed that it was just Cas's adorable little kitten rubbing against my calves. "Hey, Giz," I said affectionately as I bent down to give the tiny furball a cozy little squeeze. Gizmo meowed lazily before licking my thin fingers and then burrowing himself into my skinny arms. Aw.

"Come on, let's go find an empty compartment," Cas said as she looked around for familiar faces in the noisy crowd. Lily Evans from Gryffindor was glancing around herself with extreme caution—probably doing her level best to avoid James Potter for as long as she could—our gazes met and we offered each other friendly grins. Alice Prewett who was standing right next to her gave us an enthusiastic wave while Marlene McKinnon shouted a barely audible 'hi'. We shouted back joyous acknowledgements before quickly grabbing our trunks and heading onto the scarlet train.

We found an empty compartment a few doors down the line and quickly stacked our stuff up before finally settling down. "So," Cas lazily rested her head onto the armrest by the side. "What'd you do all summer?"

"Oh, this and that," I said evenly. "Learned how to drive. Finished my piano lessons. Went to a few concerts. Taught Benny how to shoplift. You?"

"Well nothing quite as ridiculously uneventful as that, I can tell you that much," Cas wisecracked before giving me a lewd smile. "Papa took us all to France for a fortnight. By gods, you should have seen the men over there, Lee. It was paradise, I tell you."

"Mm, I can imagine," I murmured languorously. "Not that we don't have our fair share of men over here. Did you see Sebastian Grey on the platform earlier? My, he sure grew up."

"Did he? I didn't see him," Cas said interestedly. "I did catch a glance of the Marauders, though. Can't say much of Pettigrew, but sweet Jesus the other three – Remus Lupin could ruffle my feathers any day, I swear."

I hummed some more. "And James Potter… Lily doesn't know what she's missing – poor boy's mad after her and she doesn't seem to be giving in any time soon."

"Potter," Cas sighed. "Wish he stalked _me_. I would die, I reckon."

"Wouldn't be no stalking 'cuz you'd be shoving your tongue down his throat the second he looked your way," I laughed, dodging the blow she aimed at my exposed tummy.

"But seriously, did you catch a glimpse of Black? Boy looks more and more like a god with every passing year, I think."

"Nah," I shrugged. "Must've missed him. But nothing less to expect, is there? Could probably eat him up, he's that yummy."

"Mm," Cas mumbled. "But rumor has it Linda Throppe finally managed to sink her claws into him. Last I heard, they were planning to exchange letters during the holiday."

"Yech," I said disapprovingly. "That bitch? What a waste. What's he thinking, really?"

"Dunno," she tilted her head in thought. "Don't think he knows just how low she can get. Or maybe," she wiggles her eyebrows. "He knows _just_ that."

"Dirty," I wagged a finger at her. "I approve."

The floor beneath us gave a soft groan before beginning to move at a laborious pace. We sat up immediately and pressed our faces into the clear glass windows. As we left the station behind, slowly and then all at once, we both gave simultaneous sighs before giving each other mixed smiles.

"Two more years and we're never riding the Express again," Cas sighed. "I don't know whether to be excited or sad."

"Let's not ponder over anything heavier than what my stomach's going to be after the feast this evening," I grinned. "You up for a game of cards?"

"Rummy?" Cas offered. "And then some Exploding Snap – I've got a deck somewhere inside my bag."

"Did I hear you say Rummy?" a melodious voice interrupted our easy conversation. The both of us turned around to see Lily, Alice and Marlene standing by the compartment door. "Room for three more, you think?"

"Come in," I laughed, waving them over. "You Gryffindors best be prepared to have the floor wiped with your faces, I'd say."

"Bullshit," Lily snorted. "We Gryffindors got you Ravenclaws beat by a mile. Go on, deal us in. Alice, close the door, will you? Don't want Potter to come knocking by anytime soon."

"Such denial," Marlene snickered. "It's almost amusing – no wait, it passed that a long time ago. Now it's downright thigh-slappingly hilarious."

"Kiss my ass," Lily said mock offended. "Go on, Cassie – let's get started, shall we?"

And so it goes.

The time went by pretty quickly. All five of us passed the time playing, gossiping or simply eating our socks off, talking about all of the crap we did during our hols and hating on Potter (but only in Lily's case). I felt comfortable in this little group – Dorcas was always going to be my best friend but the both of us were pretty close to the other three too. We went all the way back to first year, to that first train ride where I had shared a compartment with these very same people. There was still quite a remote division between us, though – I suppose that came with the house differences, but what could we do? I liked things this way.

Before long, the morning sky was giving way to pinks and purples as the sunset came by in all its wonderful glory. It was around this time when I felt the sudden need to go and hunt down the trolley lady for another bit of food.

"Aren't you full from all the candy you had already?" Cas looked at me amusedly. "You managed to consume something short of a mountain, I should think."

"You can never have too much candy," I told her very seriously. With a quick exhale, I pushed myself off the ground and tugged at the shorts that had ridden up over time. "I'll be back soon."

"You know you're probably in for a visit with Madame Pomfrey, right?" Lily called laughingly as I bounded out the compartment door, waving a dismissive hand in response as I went.

I passed quite a few familiar faces, making me delay my journey as I was obligated to stop for the ritualistic how've-you-been's and long-time-no-see's. It was only about ten minutes later when I finally caught sight of the friendly woman standing by the water cooler, well, thank the Lord.

And I just went, mind suddenly following a singular flow of thought before I was suddenly brought down from my inexplicable state by a loud crash into my delicate side.

"Ow," I deadpanned as I clutched at my hip in abject agony.

"Careful, love," a smooth voice said as its owner picked himself up off the carpeted ground. "You could hurt yourself." I tried not to let any saliva show as Sirius Black offered me a stunningly apologetic smile before holding out a hand for me to grab onto.

"I would try to take advantage of this situation in order to satisfy my unflinching lethargy, but I'm a bit too hungry to even bother trying," I sniped as I wrapped my fingers around his wonderful piano fingers and heaved myself back onto my feet.

Black's grey eyes sparked at the unintended opening, apparently very much open to a good repertoire. "Suppose you did in fact have the capacity to try," he offered me an amused smile. "What exactly would you try to achieve?" I determinedly forced myself not to swoon.

"Well, knowing me," I gave him a sly look as I made my way toward the trolley lady who was watching everything by the side. "I would probably do my very best to earn myself a faithful slave for the rest of the week, but considering the improbability of that really happening, I would probably settle for a few odd favors here and there."

Black raised his eyebrows and gave me a mocking laugh. "Nicely done. You'd probably have to save your plans for another sucker, however, considering how you'd fail quite spectacularly in this particular situation."

"Black," I gave him a consoling pat on the back as I gathered a tiny pile of sweets and offered the lady the change it duly required. "You're probably one of the biggest suckers I've had the pleasure to meet in a very long time. And you can take that any way you like," I added with a snicker.

He caught the innuendo and gave me a surprised grin. "Maybe we can find out exactly how big a sucker I am together_,_" he said, recovering quickly and giving me a ridiculously sexy wink.

I expertly disguised my keening with a confident smirk. "Sorry, cookie," I patted him on the back with a touch of faux-sympathy. "But tell you what, I can find you a replacement if you want. Funny thing, it's kinda attached to you right now – I do believe you call it your right hand."

And I gave him a wicked smirk before walking away.

There was a tiny murmur followed by the sound of spraying water. I turned around to find myself faced with an entertaining sight – there stood Sirius Black, soaked from head to toe, while James Potter stood to the side with his wand aimed at the former, looking for all the world like Christmas had come early to his friendly doorstep.

"Thought you might need some water for that scorching burn," Potter said through his exceedingly manly giggles, making Black turn to stare at him with mild exasperation. I burst out laughing and barely managed to walk away.

…Now don't get me wrong, I do not have a crush on Sirius Black.

Don't look at me like that. I honest to God, swear-on-my-mama's-soul do not have a crush on him.

I, like any other girl in school, am just painfully aware of the boy's undeniable attractiveness. The guy looks like he'd been carved out by Rodin himself, and I simply acknowledge that with the attention it rightfully deserves. Other than that, however, I would be the first to tell you that I simply don't know him well enough to have a proper crush on him.

The only things I know about him are what he allows the entire population to see. I don't know him, I can't call him a friend. Ergo, I cannot possibly have an honest crush on him.

Physical attraction is as far as it will go. Don't think it can go beyond that, even. He's too private for that.

Funny thing, though – I don't even think he knows my name.

Right now, I'm probably just that girl with the smart mouth who managed to out-cheek his ass.

Right now, he's probably already forgotten about me.

Oh, well. As is life.

Goddamn inner monologues.

I allowed myself a tiny smile before making my way back to my compartment, goodies in hand.

"What took you so long?" Cas asked me as she rested her head onto her lumpy yellow backpack. "Lily, Marlene and Alice decided to head back to their compartment because they needed to change. We're going to be arriving soon."

"Met a few people. Bumped into Black on the way," I shrugged nonchalantly. "Took him down a notch. Bought my goodies and headed back here. All in a day's work, really. The woes of being me, I could say."

"Black?" Cas's eyebrows hit her hairline. "Interesting. I didn't know you talked to him."

I grinned. "I don't. It was just too good an opportunity to resist." And with that, I gave her a basic recount of exactly what had happened.

"By gods, you sneaky little fox," Cas gasped as she put every effort she had in order to continue breathing. "What I would have given to have seen his face, oh my god!"

I let out a bubble of laughter. "Come on, let's get changed. Wonder what we'll be having at the feast. Something yum, I should hope."

Cas shot a pointed look at the bunch of sweets on the bench before twisting her gaze to give me a wry smirk.

"That's not going to fill me up," I told her defensively. "It'll barely make a scratch. Shove off!"

"Didn't say nothing," she put her hands up but couldn't fully stifle the grin that was spreading across her pink lips.

I swallowed my smile. "Didn't say nothing, my ass."

About an hour later and we were pulling into Hogsmeade station with wide beams spread across our impatient faces. The sky was littered with a few billion stars, out of which we could definitely see at least half. Dorcas and me quickly found a carriage along with Marlene, Lily and Alice and together we made our way back towards that breathtaking castle we all called our second homes.

The feast was scrumptious as expected. We said hi to all the people we hadn't already met on the train ride over here, and spent a bit of time ruffling a few of the first year's fluffly feathers. By gods, they were adorable – were we all that cute and cuddly back then? – I wonder if I could make one of them into my pet projects for the next few months.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Marauders making a fair bit of noise on one end of their Gryffindor table. Potter was splashing pumpkin juice all over the place with his loud snorts while Black was just about falling out of his seat in hopeless laughter. Pettigrew (the poor, unfortunate soul) was bright red at the ears – it was safe to assume that he had the misfortune of being the butt of the jokes being made at that particular instance – while Lupin was doing his best to hide his smile as he patted Pettigrew sympathetically on his curling back. There was a sudden pause in conversation during which Black actually did manage to topple out of his chair, his head hitting the ground with a slightly painful thud as the others roared with laughter at his minor predicament. Quite unexpectedly, however, his head titled backwards, making his eyes accidentally meet mine. His laugh turned into a grin as he sent a wink my way before getting back into the space next to Potter and effortlessly joining into the conversation again.

Surprised, I turned away from him and looked down at my half-eaten pudding with an amused smirk.

Boy was too goddamn charming for his own good.

* * *

I took off my robe and let it hang around my shoulder as we trooped along with the crowd towards the wonderful Ravenclaw Common Room. Cas was happily chattering away with Emmeline Vance, one of our favorite fellow dorm mates. The eagle offered us his little riddle and one of the students quickly babbled a reply before stepping through the door and rushing up the stairs.

Probably needed to visit the loo. Too much pumpkin juice. Poor bastard.

"Wake me up after you're ready," I told Cas as we settled into our beds, me feeling happy and comfy in my favorite pinstriped pajamas.

"As is our everyday routine," Cas rolled her eyes as Emmeline stifled a snicker with the back of her hand. My morning rituals are evidently quite entertaining.

Lacy Atkins and Joan Wallace gave us shy smiles as they walked in before getting lost inside their own conversations. I heaved a sigh and rested my head onto the comfortingly cool pillow, feeling a sense of anticipation spread across my blanketed body. Absentmindedly waving my wand in order to close the curtains around me, I burrowed my head deeper into the covers and finally let myself relax.

Smiling as the tension seeped out of my pores, I lightly scratched at my nose and stared at the ceiling above me.

Back to Hogwarts, then.

Adalia Montgomery, sixth year.

Was everyone getting that feeling that this year was going to be crazy as fuck or was it just little old me?

* * *

**A/N:**

Hello, loves. :D

So here I am, in the beginning of another story. Don't know how it's going to shape out, or if it's actually going to shape out at all, but I thought it had potential and so here it is.

Hope you liked it. :]

As always, constructive criticism is always appreciated, as is your opinion on how things could turn out. Feel free to PM me for anything if you want.

Have a wonderful day! :D

-R.


	2. Chapter 2

"Get the fuck out of bed, you bloody fucker!"

My eyes shot open as I felt a sudden rush of shocking cold spread all across my unprepared body. Several exceedingly inappropriate slurs spewed out of my mouth as I tumbled out of my bed, soaked as fuck and shivering like a bloody fucking alarm clock.

"Dorcas, you fuckface," I growled as I scrambled to reach for my wand and dry myself as quickly as I can.

"Fifteen bloody minutes," Cas said glaringly. "It took me fifteen minutes to wake you this time. Completely ridiculous, I swear."

"You exaggerate," I scoff before pushing myself onto my feet. "You exaggerate greatly."

"I bloody well do not exaggerate," she snorted. "Next time, I'm sic'ing Gizmo on your ass."

"Don't you do that!" I gave her a betrayed look before giving the sleeping kitten an apprehensive frown. "He's too happy for mornings."

"Get going," Cas rolled her eyes. "We're getting our timetables this morning. Can't be late today."

"Whatever you say," I grumbled, but went on with it anyway. I made my way into the bathroom and brushed my teeth before having a quick shower, following which I hurriedly threw on my uniform and pushed my chin-length hair back with a thin black hairband.

Soon enough, we were rollin' through the corridors like the awesome shits we were, on our way towards the Great Hall for a wonderful Hogwarts breakfast… when I saw something interesting happening in the alcove on the side.

"Black and Throppe swapping spit at two 'o' clock," I said with a nod in their general direction. Cas twisted her head around to observe the spectacle with curious eyes.

"They look like they're trying to eat their faces," she said with a tiny snicker.

"Wonder why he'd bother with her lips when there's so much good food in the hall _right over there_," I grinned merrily.

"Mm," she agreed, squinting at them interestedly. "Imagine being on the receiving end of that," she mused. "People say a lot about his technique…"

"You'd melt before his lips got to yours," I giggled. "But god knows where those beauteous organs have even been—I mean, they're attached to Throppe's mouth right now, and I can't exactly call that sanitary…"

Cas burst out laughing. "We hate on that girl too much, I should think."

"The same girl who poured dragon dung over your head because you accidentally nudged her with your bloody elbow," I nodded conclusively. "Yes, we're most definitely without cause in this particular situation."

"Bitch," Cas glared. "I stand corrected."

"Ah, you're too funny," I sighed before pausing at the doorway and narrowing my eyes attentively.

Were those what I thought they were…?

Oh, sweet mother of Apollo—

"Waffles!" I jumped excitedly and doubled my pace when I registered the existence of the mouth-watering delicacies sitting innocently on the tables inside.

Quick as a flash I fixed my bum onto the wooden bench at the Ravenclaw table and began to pile my plate sky high. "Yum," I said through a mouthful of foodgasm.

"Pass me the coffee," Cas mumbled. I kindly obliged.

"Ah, Ms. Meadowes, Ms. Montgomery," a squeaky voice interrupted our morning rituals. We turned our heads to see the jolly face of Professor Flitwick beaming at us like we were Merlin's grandbabies or something.

"Ms. Meadowes, an admirable set of seven O's and two E's. I assume you're following in your family's footsteps to become a Healer?"

"Yes, Professor," Cas agreed with a sip of her coffee. Flitwick offered her a cheery wink before tapping on a page with his wand and giving her the new timetable.

"And Ms. Montgomery," he continued, focusing his gaze onto me after. "Again, impressive grades, if I may say—eight O's and one E in Herbology—you are opting to continue with Ancient Runes and Arithmancy as well, I must ask?"

"Yes, Professor," I nodded. "I'm planning to take on Experimental Studies as a profession."

"An Experimentalist!" Flitwick squeaked delightedly. "An incredible choice, dear girl, and equally difficult! I could refer you to a few experts further down the line if you like. But for now, here is your time table—"

"Thank you, professor," I grinned thankfully as I accepted the page from the diminutive old man.

"I'm looking forward to seeing you both in Charms," he squeaked before moving on to a few third years by our side. I turned my head to see Benny lazing around with Jimmy Nolan and Lionel Wilson over at the Gryffindor table. The boy offered me an acknowledging wave before gelling back into the ongoing conversation.

"Benny's turning out to look pretty cute," Cas told me seriously.

"Really?" I questioned and turned once more to give him a scrutinizing look. "I don't see it."

"It comes with the familial perspective," Cas said dismissively. "But I'm telling you, that boy's already getting a few looks from the girls in his year. Two years down the line and you'll have another Sirius Black in your hands."

"Hm," I thought for a moment. "Ew. A bit too taxing on my imagination, I should think. Let's change the subject, shall we?"

"Sure," Cas laughed. "How about we talk about the fact that Kurt Donovan—gods, you lucky girl—has been giving you the eye for the past few minutes?"

"Really?" I said interestedly before surreptitiously glancing in the guy's general direction. "Er—Cas."

"Yeah?" she raised her eyebrows.

"He's not looking at me."

"What?"

"He's looking at you."

"What?!"

"Keep your voice down," I whispered furiously. "No, don't look that way, you git. Look at me."

"What the fuck, Lee," she looked at me alarmed. "I did not expect that."

"Hah," I laughed. "This is funny."

"No, it's not," she gasped. A quick look in his direction and her expression turned frazzled again. "He's still looking!"

"And?" I grinned. "It was fine when he was presumably looking at me, but now that it's you, it's suddenly unsettling?"

"Course it is!" she inhaled. "Oh look, it's time already! Come on, we must go to class now."

"What—Cas, we still have ten minutes!"

"No, early birds and all that nonsense. Let us go."

"But—"

"Come!"

I gave my waffles one last longing glance before stepping out of the seat and following Cas out of the Hall.

"Kurt Donovan was looking at me," Cas stated about five minutes later when we were well on our way to Transfiguration.

"Now, really?" Marlene said as she fell into step beside us, Alice and Lily following not long after. "Kurt Donovan? That cute Seventh Year bloke? You lucky thing."

"He was looking at me," she said to her, like the entire situation was a whole bunch of crock to her. I stifled the laugh that threatened to bubble out of my throat.

"Well, what do you expect? You're quite easy on the eyes, Dorcas," Lily rolled her emerald hues. "What do you say, Alice?"

Alice, however, was too busy making googly-eyes at Seventh Year Frank Longbottom as he passed us down the hall. "Ehm, yes, whatever, I totally agree," she mumbled, craning her neck to follow him as long as she could before he turned a corner and disappeared. "Merlin, he's so perfect, it's almost unfair."

"Ask him out, you berk," Marlene cuffed her on the head. "You're so lovesick, it's absurd."

"Kurt Donovan was looking at me!" Cas gasped like this conversation had never even happened before.

I let the laughter pour out of my throat as I wrapped an arm around the blonde's stiff shoulders and gave her an affectionate squeeze.

It was good to be back.

* * *

The next few days passed by without much ado. We managed to get back into our routine pretty quickly, even after the transition from fifth to sixth year. Most of our teachers gave us little time to adjust before piling on the homework, and with the expectations hanging on us over non-verbal and other kinds of advanced magic, it was a wonder I wasn't already a walking zombie. There were two new teachers that year—one, for DADA, who's name was Professor Quick, and another for Arithmancy—a woman named Agatha Mass. Quick was lithe and quiet—a dangerous combination to come by, but I hadn't yet had a class with him. Mass, on the other hand…

Well, given my apparent fear of crotchety old women, it holds no surprise that Professor Mass pretty much had me quaking in my shoes the moment I entered her obsessively neat classroom just about three days later.

"Go on, grab a seat," she said snappishly when I didn't move for more than a few microseconds.

"Yes, okay," I said and quickly did as she snapped. "Hi," I said to Morris Lowe, the male prefect of the Ravenclaw sixth years, who gave me a friendly nod in reply. A swift glance around the classroom informed me that there were only five other people taking Advanced Arithmancy along with me—one of which was Gryffindor prefect Remus Lupin.

There was a scoff towards my left. I slowly turned around to see Meda Pritchard staring down at me with her uppity nose. "Hello," I said with a grin. The Slytherin made a gagging noise in the back of her throat before turning away with a disgusted huff.

Well then.

I see how it is.

The bell rang and Mass leaped out of her seat like it was on raging fire. "Pull out your parchment," she snapped and imperiously waved her wand at the blackboard, making about a dozen Arithmantic equations fade into view. "You have fifteen minutes. Finish them all or you're kicked out of class. Get to it, then."

Holy fucksies.

"Merlin, this could give people heart attacks," I muttered under my breath as I pondered over number 12, the last one I had left. "Aha," I snorted as I spotted the trick symbol in the problem. "Fucking math-traps."

"Psst," said a voice from behind me.

I cast a surreptitious glance at the dozing professor in the front of the classroom before turning to give the person an inquiring glance. Remus Lupin looked at me with a sheepish smile on his tiredly handsome face as he tapped his quill onto the inkwell by his side. "Did you get question 14? It's the only one I have left."

"Oh, er—" I glanced down at the parchment in front of me. "The answer's 42. You probably read too deep into the problem. It's a simple BODMAS. Prioritize the dividend and you should be fine, I think."

"Oh," he frowned before looking up to give me a thankful smile. "Thanks. Don't really want to get kicked out of class first thing in the year."

"Would be a first for you, wouldn't it?" I said with a snort before concentrating on that last question once more. "There we go," I mumbled, scribbling down the final answer before finally placing my quill down. Safe for now, I should think.

"Time's up," Mass grumbled before waving her wand once again. The papers flew off our desks and deposited themselves in a neat stack on her organized desk. "Class will resume in five minutes. Keep your voices to the bare minimum or I will give you detention. You are now allowed to speak." And with that, she got around to checking everybody's quiz solutions.

"Scary," I murmured barely audibly.

"Don't I know it," Lupin agreed with a sigh. Hey, he's got some sharp ears.

"Adalia Montgomery, am I correct?" he asked as he held out a hand for me to shake. "Lee," I corrected as I wrapped my palm around his. "Call me Lee. Everybody does."

"Lee it is, then," he grinned. "I don't believe we've ever properly interacted before," he said with a thoughtful frown.

"Do suppose that comes with the house divisions," I shrugged. "Until now, the class hasn't ever been small enough to warrant any interaction between us."

"Makes sense," he agreed with a smile that. "We'll rectify that, though. Say, aren't you that girl from the train? The one that walked all over Sirius and then left him hung up to dry?"

"I like how you took that and literally made it into my entire identity," I told him cheerfully. "It says so much about my abilities, don't you think?"

"Oh, uh – I didn't mean it that way," he told me hurriedly. "It's just… uh—"

"Lupin, relax," I laughed as quietly as I could, which was a bit of a difficulty, considering my tendency to snort. "I don't really mind."

Not true, but it was cool because he seemed to look remotely relieved, if a little uncomfortable.

"So tell me, Remus Lupin," I began seriously. "Did you and your chaps actually manage to break into McGonagall's quarters and transfigure all her unmentionables into actual pigs, or was that just a groundless rumor?"

It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

* * *

"Lee, shove over," Lily ordered as she dumped her bag onto the table in front of me. I stuck my tongue out at her but moved aside anyway.

"Not many people taking this class, are there?" she mused as she looked at the people around her. I made a quick survey of the room as well—two Hufflepuffs, three Slytherins, one Gryffindor and four Ravenclaws—one of which included me.

"Mm," I hummed. "Ancient Runes is supposed to get a lot tougher in the last two years. One of the older Ravenclaws told me that it gets really practical-based. Less of history, more of execution."

"Really?" she smiled. "Sounds interesting." She flipped open her bookbag and began setting things up one by one.

"Do we have a final project of sorts in the course? I heard something about creating your own Rune schemes, but I don't know about anything in particular…"

"Something like that," I affirmed. "I don't know the details, though. Carver will probably talk about it later."

"Good morning, class," Professor Carver said briskly as he walked through the door in a cloud of busy disorganization. "This year, we're going to be delving more into the applications of Runes in everyday branches of magic. First things first—how magic can be broken down into a very basic alphabet that constitutes the foundation of every single area of magic preexisting. Now, if you'll open your textbooks and turn to page 17 of the first chapter, you'll find a passage highlighted in blue detailing exactly how… –"

Sweet Merlin, I was going to love this class.

* * *

"Lee, my love, my darling—you stop right there and sit your ass onto this seat this very instant—quick, before Potter comes."

"Lily, you surely exaggerate," I snorted as I gave Cas an apologetic smile before setting my things down with a firm thud. In front of me, Alice let out a little laugh while Marlene snickered into the palm of her hand. Cas gave me a mock-offended look before swallowing a chuckle and settling down next to Emmeline, who offered her a tiny smile.

"Potter," Lily said darkly. "Toe rag."

"Your affection is visible in the endearments you bestow upon his sexy bod," I told her laughingly. "Quidditch must have done him _some _good. I'm telling you, Lily - you're probably missing out on something mouth-watering."

"His arrogance by far overshadows any attraction I might possibly feel towards his annoying self," she informed me firmly. "It's a wonder he doesn't lift up and float away with all the hot air filling his stupid brain."

"Wait, what was that about possible feelings of attraction?" a masculine voice suddenly chimed as the rest of us burst into fits of irregular laughter. All of us looked towards the door to see Potter and his clique standing there in epic formation, the former staring at the redhead with an entertainingly shocked expression on his good-looking face.

Lily stopped laughing and glared. "And there comes the arrogance with how he automatically assumes I'm talking about him. Potter, your love for yourself knows no bounds."

"Neither does my love for you, my wonderful Lilypad," he declared without hesitation. "You are a beacon of light in the darkness that surrounds me. Relieve my heart of the agony that restricts it and do me the favor of going out with me?" He grinned convincingly.

I resisted the urge to facepalm. Black made a suspicious noise before turning around to face the wall. I got the strange feeling that he was laughing his ass of, but what do I know?

Lily, meanwhile, appeared to be on the verge of making what would obviously be regretful decisions – well, it depends on how you define the word 'regretful', of course, but they most probably would have unpleasant consequences – this amused me greatly. Lupin, noticing the impending explosion, wrapped an arm around Potter's shoulders. "Come on, let's get our seats before Slughorn arrives." And with that, he guided the love-struck fool away with an air of a nurse caring for a patient in a mental asylum.

"The poor boy's in love with you," Alice told her with a shake of her head. "It's actually quite sad, to be honest."

"He's not in love with me," Lily said stubbornly. "He's either in love with the idea of me, or it's all just a stupid mind game. Either way, I'm not going to fall for it, especially with how trivial he makes everything."

"If you say so," Marlene sighed, pushing a lock of her hair behind her ear. "Oh look, Slughorn's here."

As he was. I looked up to find the man's rotund frame slipping through the door on the right, a merry smile on his chubby face.

"Ah, yes – good morning, class. It's very good to see so many faces once again – ah, Lily, here we are – how were your holidays? Yes, and Sirius Black, too – oh, yes, the summer seems to have done you good, hasn't it? Oh, and Severus, it's good to see you, my boy. Good to see you."

I raised my eyebrows at the last name and turned around to give the guy a curious glance. His hair was falling over his eyes like a long, oily curtain and his mouth was set in what seemed to be a permanent frown. There was an obvious cough from the corner of the classroom, and I did my best to keep the smile from forming on my face when I heard the concealed 'Snivellus' somewhere inside all that spittle.

"Fucking Potter," Lily mumbled with a distressed scowl. Marlene reached around to give her a comforting squeeze. My smile faded when I recalled that heated incident that had occurred between the three parties after the DADA O.W.L. earlier that year. Snape really knew how to ruin relationships.

"Ignore them," Alice said from the corner of her mouth. I drew a small caricature of Potter's head on a stick and slipped the page over to her, and was happy to see a little grin spread across her beautiful features.

"Today, class, we're going to be brewing a very interesting potion called the Draught of Living Death. You will find the instructions on page 47. Now the intriguing thing about this potion is the fact that it actually… –"

"You cool?" I asked Lily under my breath.

"I'd say so," she told me with a small smile. "You guys are awesome."

"We do try," I said chirpily. "Let's get to brewing, shall we?"

* * *

The rest of the day flew by in a haze of giggles and groans. Soon enough, the sky was already darkening outside and Cas and me were busy working by a window in the Common Room when I was suddenly struck with an unfortunate realization.

"Balls," I groaned under my breath and dropped my head onto the table with a tired sigh.

"What is it?" Cas mumbled distractedly as she continued to scribble on her piece of parchment. A tiny frown was fixed onto her face as she soldiered on through her Herbology essay. "Gah, I hate this subject. It's so complicated!"

"Kinda forgot I had a Runes essay to complete," I looked up and gave the Common Room's ceiling a long-suffering glance. Oh ye, of the Heavens above – give me the energy to get off my ass and work.

"What the fuck do you with a Snargaluff pod? Why did I take this subject again? Lee, I demand that you help me."

"I dropped Herbology for a reason, m'dear," I told her blithely as I pushed my chair back and got onto my feet. "I'm going to head over to the library. See you at dinner!"

"No, wait – help me, I beg of you. Please, I require your assistance."

I offered her a wicked smirk before picking up my bag and walking away. On the way out, I turned around to give Seventh Year Kurt Donovan a mock curious smile. "Oi Donovan, you're good at Herbology, aren't you? Cas requires a bit of your help, if you would oblige. See you folks!"

And the last thing I saw before the door closed behind me was Cas's eyes glaring burning holes through my skull as a happy-to-help Kurt Donovan dropped his warm tushy onto the chair next to hers with a tiny grin on his attractive face.

I allowed myself a congratulatory pat on the back. Quickly swinging my backpack around my shoulders, I made my way through the corridors towards the wonderful Hogwarts library, which was every Ravenclaw's safe haven.

The library, with its tall wooden bookshelves and warm candle lighting had a beautiful atmosphere reminiscent of soft snowy nights and cozy little dens with big leather armchairs and a dancing fire crackling in a tiny fireplace. I inhaled deeply and smiled as the musty aroma of ink and old parchment wafted through my eager nostrils.

Perfect.

I quickly dumped my stuff onto an empty table and made my way to the library's extensive Rune references.

What was I looking for again? Ah, yes _– Magic and Methodology – The Runic Aspects to Process and Execution_ by Bernard Script. Now where are you, my lovely?

"Mm, Magic and Methodology," I mumbled under my breath as I let my fingers trail along the spines of the books in the shelves. "Bernard Script, you sneaky bastard – you can't avoid me forever, love."

"Bad time?" a deep baritone drawled, "I wouldn't quite want to interrupt your search for your very-much-dead lover, but I did look forward to an illuminating conversation with a well-equipped contender."

I whirled around to find myself rewarded with the pleasure of being the subject of Sirius Black's roguish smile. "Well that depends – when you say well-equipped, do you intend to compliment my quick tongue or am I to instead look for a second meaning in your words? How naughty of you, Sirius Black."

Black's smile turned into a grin. "That depends as well. If I choose to offer any indication towards the first, do I get to see exactly what your quick tongue can do?"

"My, my, aren't you the forward little git," I raised my eyebrows and turned around to face the books once more. "Perhaps you might be a bit more successful knocking at Linda Throppe's front door? I heard a little something about you guys going _exclusive_." I stifled a snicker.

"Eh," Black shrugged. "Throppe's fun and all, but I don't suppose you could count her well-armed if you consider engaging her in a battle of wits."

"Throppe? Well-armed?" I snorted. "Nigh improbable, but so are the possibilities that you're actually participating in conversation when you two are together and alone. I'd imagine you'd find enjoyment in other _interesting_ activities that would give your tongues an equal, if not more rigorous workout."

"I would protest, but it's actually rather true, so..." he did his best to muffle a laugh. "What are you looking for?"

"Bernard Script," I told him as I merrily studied all the titles around my happy self. "Magic and Methodology. So what brings you to the library of all places this fine evening?"

"Oh, er –" Black made a face as he moved next to me to check out some of the higher shelves. I heard him grunt as he reached up on his tippy-toes to pull a book out with apparent difficulty. I found it amusing to see a guy nigh on 6 feet stand on his tippy toes, but I decided not to let my amusement be known and happily accepted lovely Bernard from his waiting hands.

"I dunno, Remus is forcing Peter to do a bit of work and James is busy trying to woo Evans. I didn't have anything to do so I decided to head over here to pass the time."

"You came to the library for entertainment?" I asked him skeptically. I belatedly noticed him following me as I made my way back to my little table, but didn't give it much thought. "You, Sirius Black?"

"That hard to believe?" he asked wryly. "Contrary to popular belief, I do enjoy a good book once in a while."

"Really?" my lips quirked. My respect for him had just gone up a few notches. "Now that's an interesting idea to consider. I could recommend a few to you later, if you would be so inclined."

"Mm," he hummed. "I would like that." He gave me an appreciative smirk. "I'd best be going, I suppose. James is probably looking for me. Nice talking to you, Montgomery."

"Lee," I corrected as I flipped the book open and ran a finger down the dusty index. "Everyone calls me Lee. You're no exception, Black."

He grinned as he adjusted the strap of his black leather book bag. "Perhaps you would then do me the courtesy of calling me Sirius, as civility dictates. Catch you later, Lee."

"See you around," I gave him a jolly little wave, surreptitiously observing his yummy behind as he ambled out of the library with an ease that curled my stubby little toes. Ah, that boy. His sexy self would probably be the death of me by the time the month ended.

Interaction with Sirius Black looked to be turning into a regular thing in my otherwise average life.

I don't suppose you'd hold it against me if I told you I liked it?

* * *

**A/N:**

How's it going?

So chapter two's here. I do hope you enjoyed it.

I'm going to keep this short when I say thanks to all the people that followed, favorited and reviewed. I heartily appreciate your criticism and appreciation. I do hope to hear from you guys for this one as well.

Have a wonderful day! :]

Love,

R.


	3. Chapter 3

"Lee, you bitch!" a voice echoed as I was roughly tackled into the ground by a fury of blonde when I entered my dormitory a few hours later.

"Ow, Cas, what the fuck?" I grunted as I spat out a bit of my hair and shoved her off my body. "That bloody hurt!"

"It was meant to," she sniffed as she rolled over and sat up on the floor. Hurriedly pushing her hair back, she rubbed at her eyes and then gave me a baleful glare. "What was that with Kurt? Could've given me a bit of a warning!"

"Funny," I snorted as I pushed myself onto my feet and dumped my bag onto my four-poster bed. "You would've run away if I had warned you. Besides, the two of you needed a bit of a push."

"Total bull!" she told me indignantly. "I most definitely would not have run away!"

"You would have," Emmeline said from behind her Charms textbook. "And you know it."

Cas, unsure as of how to respond, decided on glaring just a little more before climbing into her bed as well.

"Did anything happen?" I asked her curiously as I pulled out my essay and began to write the conclusion. "Between the two of you, I mean."

"Nah," Cas forgot her apparent anger. "But we're on a first-name basis now, so I suppose that's something."

"What?" I snorted again. "I give that boy a prime opportunity and he wastes it? What a fool."

"No," Cas said musingly. "I think I like it this way. It's like he's going to be slow with things, and I dunno, it's a change."

"Oh, so there are 'things' now?" I wiggled my eyebrows. Emmeline stifled a snicker with a bit of her parchment. "Tell me more."

"Er," Cas blushed. "It seems like it. The way he talks, though—I think my bones were melting." She collapsed back onto her bed with a dreamy sigh. "Yes, I think I like him."

"If you didn't, I'd be a bit worried." I took on a high falsetto. "_Oh, Kurt, mm, yes—right there! Oh! You're so handsome, Kurt! So perfect! Mm, yes! Oh, yes!"_

"Fuck off," came the reply, along with a pillow to the face.

Ah, young love.

* * *

"LEE, GET THE FUCK OUT OF BED, WE'RE GETTING LATE!" was what brought me out of my wonderful dreams the next Friday morning, followed almost immediately by a rush of hot water to the face.

At least they were considerate enough to use hot water instead of cold this time.

"Mm," I said eloquently and pushed the hair out of my stale mouth. There was a bit of stiffness pulling at the skin around the corner of my lips, and I brushed my fingers along the area to find a bit of dried drool.

Attractive.

A sudden force at the back of my head made me jerk forward in sudden surprise. "Get going," Cas told me as she summoned the balled up tie back to herself and then set about to making the perfect samosa.

"Yes, darling," I mumbled under my breath and pushed myself onto my feet with a certain amount of unnecessary difficulty. "What's the time?" I asked as I padded into the adjoining bathroom and began to brush my teeth with slight ferocity.

"Something short of 8:20," Cas said back to me. "No time for breakfast. We'll just grab a bit of toast or whatever."

"Mm," I hummed again and spat out the foam. With a wrinkled nose at the acrid sight, I hurriedly turned the water on and watched it flood away with disturbing satisfaction.

A tiny quirk of mine, if you will.

I spent the next few minutes speed-showering and then speed-putting-on my immaculately wrinkled uniform—with a few minor difficulties. "Stockings are such a bother," I groaned as I tipped a bit too much to the right and found my shoulder meeting the ground with a painful thud. "Ow," I added as an afterthought.

"Come on!" Cas whined as she shoved her Herbology homework into her bag and slipped on her shoes.

"Coming," I exclaimed and hurried through the rest. Soon enough, we were racing down the staircase and out of the Common Room entrance with the air of trained agents all set to make a coup.

"Toast," Cas murmured as she grabbed a handful and hightailed it out of the Great Hall.

"A brilliant invention for the less-than-punctual," I agreed as we hurriedly made our way up to the third floor, which was where DADA was to be held.

The class was a healthy mixture of students from all classes scattered all across the naturally lit room—there was a distinct categorization evident around us—almost all the students were sitting with their own houses. This was even more so in the case of the Gryffindors and the Slytherins, who were sitting on opposite ends of the room – their rivalry had never been more obvious.

I kept the resignation off my face when I saw the Marauders and Snape's crew throwing each other hateful glares. They were like rival sororities, honestly.

"I see Alice, Lily and Marlene," Cas said as she adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulders. I turned to look where she was pointing and saw the three girls chatting a little ways to the side. They'd placed a firm distance between themselves and the Marauders, but they were still quite obviously on the Gryffindor side. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied Snape giving Lily a longing glance before glaring at Potter once again and then going back to his conversation—probably something about making Muggleborn shish kebabs or some such evil nonsense, if you took Potter's opinion into consideration.

"Come on," Cas pulled at my arm. I rolled my shoulders and walked behind her.

"Lee," a masculine voice said in acknowledgement. I turned my head to the side to see Remus giving me a friendly smile. "Remus," I grinned. "How's it goin'?"

"Quite well, thank you," he said with a light grin. "And you?"

"Oh you know," I shrugged. "It's a bit mixed, really. It's a tiresome job, being me – perhaps I could get someone to do it for me for a while." I gave him an exaggerated pout and rejoiced in the laughter that twinkled in his rather pretty amber eyes.

"Oh, but you do such a wonderful job, love," a deep voice quipped towards his right. "Don't be so hard on yourself." I flicked my gaze in that direction to see Black—er, Sirius—giving me an engaging grin. By golly, he was hot.

"I offer you many thanks," I tipped an imaginary hat in slight acknowledgement. "But you hardly know me well enough to make a statement so conclusive."

"I base my words on observation," he shot back at me. "And observation leads me to believe that being oneself is quite a difficult occupation to wield – but of all the people I have met, you seem to do a remarkable job, no matter how little I know you." And then he gave me a wide-as-fuck beam.

"Oh, your words light a candle in my insecure heart," I wiped a hand across my forehead dramatically. "How ever could I repay you?"

Black—Sirius—tapped his lip in mock-consideration. "Perhaps, ah, in token of your appreciation, you could bestow upon me a bit of your toast? I was a bit too late for breakfast, unfortunately."

My lips quirked. Ah, the well-abused compliment-for-positive-returns-tactic. I separated two slices from the stack in my hands and offered it to him with an amused smile. He beamed at me before shoving a slice into his wide mouth. "Fanks," he said as he chewed with vigor.

"S'no problem," I shrugged and gave Remus a laughing glance. "See you boys later," I waved and made my way on to the girls up ahead. Just as I sat down with my back to them, I heard Potter say, "I didn't you know spoke to her, Pads."

"We've had a conversation or two," I heard him reply with nonchalance. "I find her interesting."

"She's got a quick tongue," Remus said in agreement, but then after that they descended into incomprehensible whispers. I felt my lips pull into a pleased grin.

"Black and Lupin?" Cas asked as she bumped her shoulder against mine. Looking up, I saw Lily, Alice and Marlene giving me equally curious stares.

"Eh," I popped my lips. "It's the question of interesting conversation," I said in reply. "Remus is in my Arithmancy class and I've bumped into Black once or twice. It's all in good fun."

Cas, Alice and Marlene accepted this just fine, but Lily looked a bit doubtful. "Remus is fine," she said hesitatingly. "But Black –?"

I felt a spark of annoyance. "He's not a bad guy," I said in defense that surprised me, considering I'd only spoken with him just barely. "Lily, you let prejudice color your perspective too much sometimes." And I wasn't just talking about Sirius this time.

There was an awkward silence. The other three didn't meet any gazes, but I got the feeling that they agreed with me, which gave me a bit of confidence in my questionable assertion.

Lily took in a steeling breath before sighing. "Okay," she agreed. Her emerald hues bore into mine with slight sadness, but it was drowning away in the dominant obstinacy. I held in a resigned sigh. "If you're sure."

"I'm sure," I took a bite of my toast and pasted on a jovial grin. "It's all cool. When's class starting, by the way?"

"Just about now, girlie," a baritone voice said from up front. All of us whipped around to see Professor Quick giving the entire class a scrutinizing stare. His gaze swept over every single person's face and I didn't even flinch when his heavy eyes glared into mine. I barely noticed it, but there was a shade of approval outlining his lips as his eyes moved on to the rest—my chest moved in unnoticeable relief when I finally let myself breathe thereafter.

"Welcome to DADA, NEWT chapter," he said with a mocking smile. His leather boots clicked across the wooden flooring as he paced back and forth, his open robe swishing along with the definite motion. Unlike any other teachers we had had, he was dressed in a pair of black trousers and a Sex Pistols T shirt, which instantly gave him my immediate approval.

"Isn't that nice?" he sighed derisively. "Defense Against the Dark Arts for a bloody exam. Wonderfully reasonable way to go about things, especially considering the warzone outside this castle's safe, protective walls."

Ouch.

I bit my lip. An exhale could have broken the silent atmosphere inside the insignificant classroom—not a person was even breathing.

He laughed under his breath and brushed away the papers before situating himself onto his hardwood desk. "I'm Joshua Quick. I'm twenty-six and I'm an Auror for the Ministry of Magic. Last month, I was injured in a melee that occurred in New Hampshire, England between a group of Aurors and a group of surprisingly efficient Death Eaters, during which six non-magicals were killed and a few of my brothers equally unfortunate. I suffered a bit of damage to my nervous system and was therefore forbidden from working on field thereafter, which basically left me with the choice of either coming here and teaching you snots or doing desk duty until I retire. As you can see," he scoffed bitterly. "I made the less painful choice."

He bumped his feet against the wood and gave us a scornful glare. "Let me make it perfectly clear—I think nothing of you guys. You guys are kids. You don't understand what it's like. You live in a cloud of exams, homework, teenage drama and materialistic tension. And that annoys the fuck out of me, because that," he snickered. "That makes you oblivious fools, and I used to be one too."

"But you know," he continued with a frown. "You've got—what? Two more years? Two more years and you're thrown out of this place and into that battleground outside those perfect windows, and with the education you've had, you're probably not going to last two shits before your brains are blown out of your minds." His lips twisted sardonically. "And I'm talking about both sides."

My gaze involuntarily flicked over to the Slytherin side, to where Snape and his pathetic friends were sitting. There were grins across their faces, but they were frozen – like they'd been cut short in their so-called 'jokes' and unexpectedly forced into reconsideration. I couldn't stop the disgusted sneer from spreading across my face—fucking bastards.

"I'm a bitter person," Quick said into the silence. "I would give any-fucking-thing to be out there, but I can't, and I fucking hate it. But I came here out of choice, because this way, I can still give you idiots the reality check you need, and it will be sooner than what I got when I was your age. And I'm going to force it down your throat even if you don't want it—even if I have to suffer through your sorry-arsed shitehead attitudes in order to stuff it through your thick heads. Who knows, maybe you'll end up using it and maybe then I'll feel a bit better about myself."

Holy fuck.

I turned my head to see Cas looking enthralled. She flicked her gaze away to meet mine, and I saw the same anticipation, the same resolution flickering inside her eyes.

"I warn you, you guys are in for a rough time," Quick shrugged. "You signed up for my class, and now you'll suffer the consequences. You can whine and groan all you want, but—well, if you want a _good grade _for the year," his lips curled contemptuously. "You're going to have to work for it. I won't tolerate triviality. You take this lightly and I throw you out of class – that's how it goes."

He paused for a while to meet every person's gaze with raised eyebrows. When his eyes met mine, I set my jaw and gave as good as I had. After his hard perusal, he waved the wand in his right hand – when had he pulled it out? A question in bold wrote itself across the blackboard.

WHAT ARE THE DARK ARTS?

"Now when it comes to the Dark Arts, there have always been misconceptions of great variety. The most common one is the belief that the 'Dark Arts' are not 'all evil'. This is, in fact, incorrect. In all of magic, only a small bracket actually falls under the heading of 'Dark Magic', and the phrase is only applicable when the nature of the magic is _truly of ill-intent._ The interesting thing, however, is the existence of so-called 'grey areas', where the nature of magic is clouded, unclear. This is where the misconception comes to life. There are no ideals to Dark Magic, but the basics are easy to understand…-"

I dipped my quill into the inkwell and scribbled furiously.

By Merlin, I was going to adore this class.

* * *

"I love him," Cas said decidedly as everybody began to file out of class in a strange flurry of awe, shock, derision and determination. I hid my smile behind my books as I lifted my bag and slipped the straps onto my shoulders.

"I wouldn't go as far," I mused as I ran a finger across the loose parchment in my hands. "But I can definitely say that I respect him. He's so _blatant_."

"Nobody's ever talked so openly about the war before," Lily said quietly from behind me. I looked at the ground with a speculative frown. "Except perhaps Professor Dumbledore, but even he tends to speak in riddles sometimes."

"He was honest with us," Alice considered. "That's a good quality in a Defense Professor."

"If anything, his class will be something to look forward to," Marlene said with a shrug.

"More than that,' I furrowed my brows. "It will be something to depend on, especially considering what's ahead of us. You know, it was there in the back of all our minds, but I don't suppose it really hit us until he pointed it out."

"I'm glad we have a good teacher, then," Cas said with a glance back at the classroom behind us. "Incomplete education could actually be the death of us—and I'm talking literally."

There was a pregnant silence.

"It's going to be bad, isn't it?" Lily said quietly. She caught my eye and I bit my lip at the silent '_especially for us'_ that floated through the back of my mind. Lily was a Muggleborn and I was as good as, with a Muggle for a mother and a Muggleborn for an absent father—I felt my lungs seizing a bit when my thoughts trailed towards the other contributor of my genetic structure, but I steeled myself with a breath and switched my train to another track.

"Let's not dwell on that for now," Marlene said hurriedly. "Come on, Alice, Lily—it's time for Transfiguration. We don't want to be late again."

Cas and I waved them goodbye and then turned to give each other considering glances. "I assume you have a free period?" she asked me annoyed.

My lips quirked into a little grin. "Have fun in Herbology," I told her and we parted ways.

Time to go finish my homework.

* * *

"What you up to?" Cas asked as she dumped her stuff onto the spot beside me. The Common Room was, as always, a rush of noise at its leisure. Who said Ravenclaws were stiff bitches with sticks up their asses? Books and covers and some such shit, mate.

"Doing my Transfig essay," I told her as I concentrated on doing the next few lines with just the right amount of precision.

She peeked into my parchment. "Oh yeah, a doodle of Albus Dumbledore's luscious beard swaying in the cool autumn breeze is quite obviously relevant to 'The Consequences of Spell-Mixing in Transfiguration'."

"I couldn't agree more," I said with a nod as I added a few more lines to cover up an empty spot. After tilting my head in satisfaction, I pulled out my wand and gave the paper a light tap. Dumbledore was now winking, flipping his hair and offering the two of us a salacious air kiss every now and then.

"That really ought to be psychologically disturbing," Cas said as she stared at the paper with hopeless wonder. "But it surprisingly isn't."

I stretched my mouth into a delighted grin. "It is perfection!" And with that, I tumbled out of my chair and marched over to the bulletin board by the side. "I must give every person the pleasure of experiencing it!"

"Er…" Cas bit her lip as if wondering to stop me or not.

I slapped it onto the board with a glowing smile. A few Ravenclaws came over in curiosity and ended up just standing there in amazed disbelief.

"Isn't it amazing?" I asked a First Year happily. She let out a shuddering gasp and ran over to her friends who whispered for a bit and then turned to stare at me with disturbed wonder.

"Sweetcheeks, you really ought not to traumatize the young'uns," Andrew Philips, fellow Sixth Year said to me with an entertained smile. Sebastian Grey and Keith Newton giggled in manly agreement.

"I'd like to see you coming up with a masterpiece like that," Cas said spiffily. "But onto subjects less entertaining," she looked at me with a baleful glare. "Why didn't you _take _Herbology with me?"

"Because I detest the subject with a hot, burning passion," I told her jovially. "Sprout probably hates the living shit out of me after I accidentally destroyed a few of her prized Fanged Germaniums."

"You could have suffered through for me," she said with a pout. "How the hell do you extract a pod from the mouth of a Blue Bottom Thorntrap?"

I snickered at the name.

"Leeee," Cas whined as she pushed a finger into my side. I twitched at the sudden sting. "Lee, help me, I need this for tomorrow."

"Why're you whining?" I asked her curiously before giving her a mischievous grin. "It gives you the opportunity to talk to Donovan, doesn't it?" And I raised two fingers to my lips in preparation.

"What?" Her eyes widened. "Again? Lee, no wait—"

I let loose a blaring whistle. The Common Room went kinda silent. "Donovan," I said with an impish smirk. "My friend here is in urgent need of your _expertise_."

Cas turned beet red. Those who caught the obvious innuendo burst into fits of laughter. Donovan tried to look embarrassed but he was a bit too tickled to fully succeed in his admirable venture. "I just need a bit of help with Herbology," Cas said in a rush, her cheeks like fire alarms. "Ignore Lee, she's just joshing around." And with that, she shot me a burning glare.

"Why, that was exactly what I had meant!" I exclaimed innocently. "Donovan's going for a Mastery in Herbology, isn't he? At least, that's what I'd heard…" I gave my best friend a questioning frown. "What ever did you take it to mean?"

Cas's glare deepened. Donovan grinned and deposited himself into the chair I had previously occupied. Cas's glare disappeared. "What do you need help with?" he asked with a casual touch at her elbow. She quivered unnoticeably.

"Oh, just a few pointers with the Blue Bottom Thorntrap," she said, her best friend forgotten. And as they descended into captivating conversation, I quickly packed up my bag and left.

"Lee, you are one brilliant piece of shit," I said to myself with a satisfied smile. This felt strangely familiar—I wondered if it was going to become a part of my daily routine.

"Not that I don't agree, but why this time?" A now familiar voice asked me in slight amusement. I grinned when I recognized the face of the person who had stopped me in my tracks.

"Just a bit of a generous favor is all," I shrugged in reply and sat down on the other side of the window he leaned against. "Hello, Sirius."

Sirius grinned and retracted his legs to make some space. "Where were you headed?" He asked with a curious waggle of his eyebrows.

"Nowhere in particular," I tilted my head in consideration. "Probably to the Great Hall to work until dinner began. Or maybe even the Library, I don't know."

"You Ravenclaws," he shook his head. "With your noses perpetually inside your books."

I lobbed a ball of parchment at his head and grinned in satisfaction when he twitched. "Stereotypes make you close-minded. Quit while you can."

"You Ravenclaws," he muttered under his breath and dodged the second ball I threw at him. "Always so tetchy."

"Fuck you," I said happily. "What's got you so pensive and brooding?"

"The fuck do you mean, 'pensive and brooding'," he laughed. "James's working the team to the ground outside and this is a prime seat—I can see them clearly and I'm still close enough to the Great Hall for when dinner begins. All cool in my book."

"You're sitting by a window and staring out into the sunset – it's perfectly acceptable for me to assume you're in angst mode," I quipped as I rummaged for my journal. "Say, Potter's already got his team swinging the ropes? But the first match isn't for a few months!"

"It's James," he said as though it was self-explanatory, which it was. "He's captain this year, and he's taking the job a bit _too _seriously, but hey, as is how he is."

"Eh, makes sense," I blew air out of my mouth and quickly ran my gaze down his sexy bod. There was a bit of stubble on his chin that looked amazingly shadowed in the seven 'o' clock sunset—the unshaved look was very becoming indeed. I shifted a bit and grinned. He hadn't noticed a thing. "Let's talk about something."

"If we weren't already," Sirius's mouth quirked, but he humored me anyway. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Oh, I don't know," I leaned my head onto the cold stone wall and thought over it. "Food."

"Always a good place to start, I suppose," he said, and on cue his stomach growled.

The both of us looked at the rumbling monster speculatively. "Is it a sign?" he wondered.

I tapped a finger to my chin. "It is very possible."

We laughed.

"What's your favorite dessert?" he asked me as he adjusted his weight a little bit, making his shirt ride up just enough for me to see a bit of abdomen—man, what are you doing?

"Mm," I narrowed my eyes and tried not to say 'you', because that definitely would have been too forward. Hormones were horrible things, honestly. "Coffee cake and apple cinnamon ice cream, I think," I sighed and felt my mouth start to water at the accompanying image my mind decided to conjure. "Ah, sweet bliss."

"Ooh, that does sound tempting," Sirius decided to groan very sexily indeed. Darling, you ought to stop doing that if you don't want me to jump your proverbial bones. "But I do prefer the good old apple crumble myself, if you will."

"To each his own," I said generously. "Let's go get dessert."

"What, now?" he sat up and looked at me questioningly.

"Well, yeah," I said obviously and started to slip out of the niche.

"But dinner's only half an hour away!" he frowned.

I turned around to give him an incredulous look. "Never took you for a rationalist, Black. _Come on_!"

"Oh," he stopped and tilted his head before jumping off the ledge and pulling up next to me. "I can't believe I said that. It's like Remus took over me for a moment or something."

"It's nice on him, but only him," I said in agreement and we continued debating on the merits of being Remus Lupin as we made our way down to the school kitchens.

There was a small snag, however.

"Black," an unpleasant voice uttered in hateful acknowledgement, making me groan under my breath. There goes dessert. God damn it. "And the sad excuse for a Mudblood too, I see. My, my, your choice in company appears to deteriorate by the day—Montgomery, really?"

"Snivellus," Sirius said through clenched teeth. I prevented myself from placing a soothing arm around his shoulder—it was too familiar an action and I did not know him very well—and instead decided to set my jaw and glare holes into Snape's unfortunate face. "Isn't your time better invested in washing that oil reservoir you call your hair instead of trying to scratch our egos with your pathetic insults? And while you're at it, you could wash your mouth too, I should say. It's improper to speak like so in front of a lady—did you learn nothing as a child or are you just naturally an incapable snotrag?"

Snape's eyebrows drew into the most horrible scowl. His hands were fingering the wand in his pocket, and I subtly withdrew my own, hiding it within my robe's sleeve. A cutting retort appeared to be on the tip of his tongue but before he could get on with the proverbial 'letting loose'; there was an abrupt change in his unfortunate countenance—his eyes surprisingly cleared of all hostility.

"It's a beautiful sunset, isn't it?" he said, seemingly very suddenly. I let my eyes scan my surroundings as quickly as I could—there were no windows in sight. "A wonderful time to think things over, according to many. But I myself tend to prefer it when the sky's completely dark, with only the _moon_ outside in all of its _understated_ glory."

Ah, okay…

I furrowed my brows at the seemingly useless—if admittedly poetic—observation (not bad, Snape), but a glance to my side showed me Sirius stiffening like he'd been hit by a bloody fucking lightning bolt. My confusion only deepened.

"It's wonderful, seeing the moon change in its stages," Snape continued to say with a cruel glint in his wretched eyes. Dude, what are you getting at. "From new, to crescent, to half and then to _full_. Yes, the _full _moon, in its prime."

The gap between my eyebrows was now all but nonexistent and Sirius was getting angrier by the second.

"I like it when it's the full moon, I think." Snape sighed as if the beauty of it simply overwhelmed his senses or something. I didn't know what was happening—what he was saying and what he meant—but it was obviously going to push Sirius over the edge.

"With it's luminescent shine, and it's—" Okay; now that's a bit _too_ much. I whipped out my wand and slammed a stunner into the fucker's gut. He went down like a domino.

I turned around to see Sirius staring at the unconscious body with a bit of baffled surprise. He switched his gaze from Snape to me and basically spent the next few seconds gaping at me and my wand, as if unsure how to proceed.

"What?" I wrinkled my nose. "I don't know what he was talking about, but it was obviously upsetting you. Ech, you boys, probably talking in code or something. Plus, his voice was kind of unpleasant, wasn't it? It's nice to hear him not speak."

He continued to stare at me.

I turned around and started walking. "And I wasn't going to wait for you to pull out your wand—who knows what you'd have done to the poor bastard if you had. Probably torn every ligament in his body a hundred times over and then a few more. Or something. Come on, let's go up to the Great Hall. No point in heading down to the kitchens now, dinner's going to start in a few."

When I heard no sign of his footsteps joining mine, I turned around to give him an inquisitive stare. "What are you waiting for?" I rolled my eyes and started walking again. This time, the surprised idjit finally decided to catch up with me instead of simply gaping like a starstruck fool. I felt a bit proud of him.

"Aren't you worried he's going to get back at you for that?" he asked me as he fell into step beside my awesome self.

"Who, Snape?" I snorted at the idea. "One, I'm as good as a Muggleborn, and a girl at that—his pride's going to be wounded. He's not going to own up to getting beaten up by a 'weakling' like me if he wants to hang on to his 'reputation'—oh, isn't that laughable? But yeah, number two—I'm good enough with my wand to be able to take care of myself. Should he ever come after me with revenge on his mind, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to take him. And three," I grinned at this one. "I'm pretty sure he's going to be more focused on you guys than on little old me in this case—I'm not worthy of his precious consideration."

"Eh," Sirius shrugged, seemingly over the exchange they'd had a few minutes ago in that gloomy hallway. "Makes sense, I suppose."

"You suppose?" I scoffed and poked him in the side with my awesome wand. I was pleased to hear him squeal. "I always make sense, thank you very much."

"If you say so," he tried to keep a straight face but his lips were twitching. I poked him once again. "Ow, quit poking me!"

"No, fuck you," I said and grinned to show him I was only joking. A glance up ahead told us that we were already nearing the doors of the Great Hall. "See you later, Sirius," I said with a wave as we parted ways at the entrance. "As I, you," I heard him say as we headed on to our own tables.

There weren't many people around considering how dinner had only just begun, but a few of the girls around me appeared to be glaring at me. I raised my eyebrows and gave them a tilt of my head, and was satisfied to see them look away in a hurry, their bravado forgotten. Ah, fangirls. So vapid, so unnecessary. It must be a wonderful existence, to be good-looking enough to have an entire legion of faithful followers.

Poor guy.

But oh, the power he could wield.

Ooh, roast beef.

What was I saying again?

* * *

**A/N:**

Hello. :)

Chapter three, there it is. Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks again for previous readers and reviewers and followers and favorite-er's, I started jumping every time I got an update in my inbox. I hope chapter three was good enough.

Do review to tell me what you think or expect - I love hearing outside opinions on possible trajectories and it's also nice to know what people actually think of the characters and the narrative.

That's it, I suppose. Have a good day!

Love,

R.


	4. Chapter 4

I kept smirking at Black all throughout the meal, even though I didn't know squat about what had happened during the confrontation with Snape a few minutes ago. The guy still looked a bit dumbstruck every time he managed to catch my eye, and after a while – presumably after he'd told his sisters-in-arms about what had happened between the three of us in that fateful corridor – even Pettigrew, Potter and Remus began to throw me mightily impressed looks from the corner of their eyes.

I didn't know whether to be flattered that they were in awe of my awesome abilities or insulted that they'd actually underestimated me so greatly to even be that impressed. Bloody numbskulls staring down at us mortal folk from their high as fuck horses – I was a Ravenclaw and proud! I ought to be frightening the living shit out of them!

Well maybe not that much, but I had the strange feeling that they'd passed me off as an inept nerd before all that had happened.

You come to me now, boys. I will eat you alive.

Cas sat across from me and kept switching between glaring at me and blushing at Donovan, who sat with his mates a little ways ahead and appeared to be shooting her magnificent smiles every now and then, much to the amusement of both his friends and hers. Her position was such that every time I smirked at the Marauders, she seemed to think that I was in fact smirking at her, which only made her glares all the more vindictive and intimidating – which was alright in my book, to be honest. Half the effort was yielding double the work and I loved it when that happened, it was just so awesome.

Perhaps I ought to have been in Slytherin.

Aside from that minor problem of being a pseudo-Muggleborn, I was pretty much a little snake to the E.

Hah, imagine me being in cohorts with Snape.

No, imagine me being the Queen of Slytherin with all of these insignificant folk waiting on me twenty-four seven, as they should be. That chit Bellatrix would be my grape-feeder, Snape would be my jester and those dumbfucks Avery and Mulciber would man my fans – did that sound a bit perverse? Eh, don't think anybody could take it that way with Avery and Mulciber involved. Such unfortunate faces – probably only mugs their mothers could love. Or maybe each other, ha ha. And then those incredibly yummy Seventh Years – whatsernames, John and Joshua Carmichael? – They would be my much-needed live entertainment (wink wink). Oh, yeah, that's a beautiful image.

Mm, yes.

Cas threw an apple at me. It was safe to assume that my thoughts were quite visible on my face, which therefore led me to realize that I would in fact not be a very good Slytherin after all. I was much too easy to read.

Which was quite unfortunate but Ravenclaw! Rawr, fear me.

Ooh, cinnamon buns.

Why didn't we have dinner all the time?

* * *

Cas glared at me all throughout the walk back to the Ravenclaw Common Room. My smirk didn't show any signs of wearing off, which only made her glare at me all the more... actually getting to the unbelievable point where she'd narrowed her eyes so much that she was basically squinting at every thing that passed us, which only made her look more comical and less intimidating. This, unfortunately, only made me smirk even more, and her squint increased so much that I began to worry if she was walking blind.

A few First Years accidentally bumped into her side. Her squint made an abrupt change in direction and the little runts squeaked before walking a bit faster, leaving us behind. I tilted my head - apparently, her glare actually was a bit terrifying. I raised an inquisitive eyebrow - it didn't look remotely squeak-worthy to me.

Cas turned around to 'pierce me with her gaze' again.

My smirk got a little wider. I wondered how long she'd be able to keep it up.

* * *

"So how's it going between you and Kurt?" I asked slyly as I brought the blanket closer to my chin a few hours later.

Cas narrowed her eyes. "You did it again," she accused as she flipped onto her side to face me with righteous indignation.

"And I'll keep doing it until the two of you begin to initiate conversation on your own," I agreed blithely, and tried not to snicker when her glare turned up a few notches. "By the gods, if I left you on your own, you'd probably dance around till you're old and grey and tottering around on your black bone-me heels or something."

"Not true," Cas protested. "Kurt could have just as easily made a move sometime down the line, who knows?"

"No," I corrected her absent-mindedly. "He would have tried and failed, considering you would be doing your level best to avoid him." My blanket was fraying. What was this? Where was my wand?

"I wouldn't have!" Cas exclaimed in a whisper, throwing her arms up into the air and inadverdently tossing her blanket onto the floor. "Ah, man."

"You, my friend, would have been so deeply rooted in denial that we wouldn't have been able to dig you out for a thousand years and then a few more." I couldn't find my wand. Where was my wand?

"You hyperbole," Cas scowled. "You hyperbole so much that you could probably keel over and die under the weight of the hyperbole you shoulder. Stop hyperbol-ing." And then for added measure, she decided to fold her arms and give me a resolute glower.

"My hyperbole has nothing on yours," I said automatically as I sat up on my bed and began to poke around for my lost treasure. "Your hyperbole could probably eat mine for breakfast and then suffer extreme indigestion from the rottenness of my hyperbole, you hypocrite." I threw my pillow onto the ground and then peeled away my bedcovers. Where was my wand?

"Oh, you're calling me a hypocrite?" Cas laughed disbelievingly and sat up as well. "My hyperbole would probably quiver in fear at the sight of your hyperbole, following which it would probably turn tail and get the fuck out of there in order to avoid the terrifying presence of your hyperbole, and then it would probably have to assume the persona of a total nincompoopish coward and call for a hundred thousand reinforcements in order to face your hyperbole with a status tantamount to his. And it would still suck ass. What are you looking for?"

"You really wanna go there?" I scoffed as I stumbled out of bed and started rummaging through the drawer by my bedside. "My hyperbole is so bad that he's probably the neglected brother as compared to yours, who's probably that annoying little git that outshines him at everything they ever do. Your hyperbole is comparatively so much more amazing than my hyperbole that he's probably going to be the only one who will be basking around in their parents' undeniable love and devotion while my hyperbole will be left gawking at them in the stone cold shadows, tossed away for nobody to see. And on top of that, your hyperbole would probably also end up snatching away the only girl my hyperbole could ever love, finally breaking his heart and his soul in the process as well. Suck on that, bitch - ah, damn you, you fucking twig, where are you?"

I slapped a hand onto my bedside table and the force that was released resulted in my (rather useless) alarm clock tumbling down to the smooth hardwood floor - this was punctuated with a large thump that finally managed to rouse my dormmates from their hibernation-like slumber.

"Mm, what's happenin'?" Emmeline mumbled sleepily as Lacy Atkins and Joan Wallace also lifted their heads, rubbing their eyes and muttering about in a sleep-induced daze. "Why are you both up? It's one a.m. - at least, I think it's one a.m. Wassetime, Cas?"

"Er," Cas grimaced and glanced at the clock on her side. "Yeah, it's one a.m. Go back to sleep, guys - it's all cool. Sorry for waking you."

"Nf," Emmeline nodded and collapsed on her bed again. Joan and Lacy followed without further ado. I threw a few more things behind my shoulders and let out a strangled groan. "Fuck me," I muttered and leaned down to check under my bed. "Can't see it, damn it."

I could feel Cas looking at me with a confused expression on her bedraggled face. "What the fuck are you looking for?" she whispered as she crawled out of her bed to join me on the floor on all fours.

"My wand, what else?" I narrowed my eyes and glared at the dark expanse of the space beneath my bed. "Can't see shit - wait, _Lumos_!"

"Ah, that's better," I grinned as I shoved my wand under the bed to look for my wand.

"Er," Cas stopped short.

"Hm?" I looked at Cas questioningly. She appeared to be on the verge of slapping the living shit out of me. "What?" I furrowed my eyebrows.

"Lee," she took in a calming breath. I tilted my head in deepening confusion. "Your wand," she flared her nostrils. "Is in your hand."

I paused in my movements and slowly looked down.

"Oh," I said. This was new.

"Oh," Cas agreed and then slammed my pillow into my face. "You twit!"

"To be fair, I ate a lot," I defended and raised my arms to block another blow. I was unsuccessful. "Ouch, Cas!"

"Stupid," Cas told me firmly. "No."

She threw the pillow at me. I did not dodge. We paused in our scuffle and stared at each other for a couple of seconds.

"You will mention this to nobody," I told her stiffly.

"If it makes us clean even for the Peel Incident of seven weeks ago," she replied immediately.

"Deal," I agreed and we purposefully scratched our left nostrils.

We exchanged a serious look. "Nothing happened," we said in unison and then climbed into our beds again.

"I'm suddenly very scared for myself, though," My breath stuttered as I covered my face with my heavy blanket. It was still frayed. I cast a baleful glare at my wand and then poked the fraying fabric with the unfortunate twig. The frays disappeared.

"It's probably all the hotness you've been surrounded by these past few days," Cas snickered into her pillow. "Lupin and Black? Whoa girl, you sure know how to have fun."

"It's a plausible reason," I tilted my head seriously. "I'm addled, holy fuck."

"You're addled," Cas agreed. "On the bright side, you're still not as dumb as Throppe, which is always a good thing." She fell silent for a few seconds. "Maybe sleep will do you good."

"Sleep," I muttered dubiously, and then closed my eyes anyway. "Sleep."

"G'night, Lee," I heard her emit a faint sigh.

"Mm, g'night, Cas," I murmured and then fell asleep moments thereafter.

* * *

"Ooh," I emitted a sensual groan. "Mm, it's so yummy."

"You've got a bit dripping down your mouth over there," Cas deadpanned, smearing a bit of butter onto her toast as I closed my eyes and sighed once more.

"Mm," I said again, and popped a strawberry into my mouth.

"You know, that's actually quite attractive," Sebastian Grey told me from his spot at the table about a few people away. "Never knew how a person could make oatmeal look attractive, it's ridiculous."

"What," I turned a brilliant shade of raspberry red. Tilting my head and doing my level best not to crawl under the table and then hide behind a curtain of my (admittedly short) hair, I did the goldfish for a few more seconds before making a little noise at the back of my throat. "It's yummy," I finally said because in the end, choosing to completely ignore that totally awesome compliment was probably the best (and wisest) measure to adopt - if I didn't want to spontaneously combust and set fire to the entire Ravenclaw table, that is.

I offered him the bowl of oatmeal. "Try it," I said half-heartedly.

"Er," he looked unsure. "I don't think I could pull it off, no thanks."

I looked down at the squish in my hands and shrugged before wrapping my lips around another spoonful of yum. "You're missing out on something phenomenal," I told him and tossed another strawberry into my waiting mouth. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him eyeing my lips rather curiously. My cheeks turned redder.

"No doubt," he muttered, and didn't look up from his plate for the rest of breakfast.

"Did you break him or something?" Cas whispered as she glanced at the speculative Sixth Year with amusement.

The Fourth Year sitting beside Cas - Charlotte Nolan, if I recalled (Benny's friend Jimmy's elder sister) - turned her head to regard the guy with questionable wonder. Reaching quickly into the container in front of her, she picked up a piece of bacon and lobbed it at the unassuming blighter. It slapped against his rosy cheek.

He hardly flinched.

(Well okay, he did look up to glare at the girl for a few seconds, but he went back to being awkward barely milliseconds after that, so there.)

Charlotte looked at me and grinned wide. "Tell me how you do it."

"What, I don't know," I turned even redder.

There was a small pause.

"No more oatmeal-gasms at breakfast," Cas declared firmly.

"Yes, okay," I agreed because I didn't know what else to do. We exchanged a look before wrapping up our breakfast and then tumbling out of our seats to head on to visit good ol' McGonagall, woohoo.

* * *

Transfiguration with the Slytherins was fun and exciting as always (Snape glared at me for only a minimal twenty minutes before losing interest in my totally phenomenal self - I tried not to feel too insulted because him not paying attention to me was actually a very good thing - and I was insulted only twice by that sniffy little chit Meda Pritchard, so all in all, it was actually pretty cool.) and Arithmancy flew by safely enough because I had Remus Lupin to battle the evil wretch alongside me (the guy had the driest sense of humor in the whole bloody world and quite frankly, it thrilled the fuck out of me. Because whoa man, he rocked 'n' rolled it like no man's business - damn the House divisions for keeping me away from such an amusing acquaintance. The guy could say _anything _with a poker straight face, how was it even possible -).

And then lunch arrived and it was kind of weird, to be honest - Sebastian Grey sat a bit farther away from me than usual but I put that down to coincidence rather than strategic placement, because if it actually was the latter, I wouldn't know whether to be flattered or insulted. Cas ribbed me quite a bit about it though, and so did Lily, Alice and Marlene from their seats on the Gryffindor table... but I was being teased for having charmed a guy with oatmeal of all things, so I didn't actually mind.

The obscene gestures that rained on me from those amused twits on the other side of the Hall didn't go easy on the embarrassment, however.

"Mm, so good," Cas imitated me using a bit of the chicken's brownish gravy. It looked like poop. I tried not to puke.

"Try it," she said breathily and then waved a fork for good measure.

"Cas, put that down," I ordered her when she just about managed to avoid killing the Third Year sitting next to her. "Did she get you, kid?" I asked him with concern.

The guy blushed and then shook his head minutely. My lips quirked and he blushed a little more.

I stared at him for a few seconds.

"He's adorable," I cooed and then determinedly resisted the urge to pull at his face when his cheeks flushed some more. Like whoa, man. "Can I keep him?"

"Lee," Cas looked at me sternly, and went so far as to hit me on my fingertips when they inched forward without my apparent consent. "You cannot own him, he's a human person and it goes against their rights as an individual in a wholly democratic society."

The funny thing, however, was the fact that the kid had turned his head to stare at Cas resentfully about halfway through her human-rights lecture, and by the time she had ended he was outright glaring the fuck out of her. "What do you know about me?" he asked her bluntly, making her stop short. "She can own me if she likes!"

Cas paused in her stern disapproval to look down at him with total amazement. He offered me a hopeful grin and I cooed at him some more. "Can I keep him now?" I asked her pleadingly.

Cas didn't seem to be capable of using her voice box, for some inane reason. "Uh," she said smartly.

"Okay," I agreed and then punched my fist into the air. "I've got a minion! You don't mind being called a minion, do you?" I clarified nonchalantly.

"No," the kid said happily and, get this, turned to shoot this extremely triumphant look at some of the other Third Years sitting some ways down the line. These other cute little things were looking at us with equal amounts of astonishment and gloom. I tilted my head in slight confusion. What in the world -

My thoughts were cut short when I saw the little guy open his mouth again. "You can tell me if you need _anything_," the kid stressed, looking for all the world like his dream girl had finally come to her bloody senses and declared her undying love and devotion for him or something.

"Yes, okay," I agreed readily.

"No seriously," he hurried to add. "_Anything."_

"Of course, kid," I told him cheerfully. His face fell.

"You can call me Greg, you know," he paused. "Or even 'love', I don't really care -"

"Nah, 'kid' suits you," I dismissed his words. "It's nice to know your name, though. T'wil probably make this a bit easier. Hm, Greg. It's a nice name, I suppose."

Greg looked a bit disappointed but it clearly didn't affect him all that much, because five seconds later he was already turning in his place to shoot another victorious look at his gaping friends.

I glanced at my staring best friend, knowing I probably looked tremendously pleased. "So, you were saying?" I asked her cheekily.

"Er," Cas replied.

"Yes, well said," I nodded, and we moved on to something else.

So basically, lunch was entertaining as fuck.

Following lunch pretty much all of us had a free period (because Muggle Studies), so after scoffing rebelliously at our rapidly increasing pile of homework and then staring longingly at the sunny weather outside, we took a few steps forward before teetering slightly and then inadvertently found ourselves looking back at the nagging essays-to-be-written because uneasy consciences. In the end, we suffered through a mildly unpleasant form of tug of war before reaching an unfavorable compromise that led us to lugging our homework outside, as we knew we would anyway do.

Soon enough, we were happily settled under the good old oak tree overlooking the Black Lake with homework in one hand and reluctance in another.

"Potions," Cas scoffed as she got to scribbling. I stifled a laugh before forcibly switching into my 'focus study' mindset, because nothing less than the utmost concentration was needed in order to solve this insane puzzle-like thing that that crazy bat Mass had the gall to call 'homework'.

"Most definitely," Alice was saying as I got to screwing around with those cumbersome equations - the girl was all up for becoming an Auror once she was done with school, but that didn't mean she didn't like the subject matter any less.

"It's not that bad," Lily defended, but her words were largely dismissed.

"You're not counted in this situation," Alice told her firmly and then threw a few blades of grass at the redhead's face for added effect. (I looked up and shot Cas a you've-done-it-now sort of grin before getting back into the Arithmo-zone.)

"Pf," Lily spat out some vegetation before turning up her nose, just as I had known she would because duh, she was Lily Evans and she defined stubborn to the T. "Your loss. I'm certainly not helping you _now_."

There was a small pause.

And then the usual foot-kissing followed - you know how it goes.

Meanwhile, Marlene was busy looking over her notes while trying to perfect the Confundus Charm. Before long, however, she'd fully given up doing any sort of useful shit whatsoever, and chose instead to toss her parchment to the side and then pin me with a wicked grin.

"So..." she said, crossing her legs expectantly.

I looked up and gave her an equally expectant look. When she didn't respond, I sighed and gave in to verbal communication. "So, what?"

"So," Marlene said mischievously. "So, Sirius Black." The other three quickly shut up and focused on us with just as expectant expressions. Her grin widened. "So, Sebastian Grey."

"So," she said - rather redundantly, now that you look at it. "So what's happenin'?"

I paused in my quill-scratching to give them my best are-you-fucking-serious look. "You're kidding me, right?"

Lily raised a red eyebrow. "Why would we?" she grinned. "Ignore our smiles, we're completely serious here."

Cas burst out laughing. Alice soon followed.

"Er," I tilted my head to the side. "Oh, yeah, totally serious."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Oi, shut up," she tossed at Cas and Alice and, after a few seconds, they managed to contain their laughter. After a few more seconds, all of them were back to fixing me with that same look of expectancy that I was slowly beginning to abhor.

This was about the same time where I started to find inexplicable amusement in this entire 'confrontation' situation.

My lips pulled up into a smile that widened and widened until it was a full-blown grin, following which, to the complete bafflement of my very dear friends, I collapsed into a fit of giggles - this was mostly due to the train of thought that had suddenly originated inside my worryingly wacko head.

"We -" I emitted a few snorts. "I'm," I'm embarrassed to say that that was quite possibly a tiny little grunt. "I'm seducing them into a torrid threesome that's going to knock everyone's socks off - we actually meet every night in the Astronomy Tower to have some hot, hot sex that makes my toes curl. We're also planning to enter into a three-way marriage by the time the year closes because none of us can even bear to think of being apart." I had to pause to accommodate for another bout of senseless snickering. "After that, we're escaping to this remote corner in the lower Himalayas in order to avoid the stigma of something that's obviously not a norm of society - there's a little community over there that's willing to take us in. Don't worry, we'll send you a postcard. Don't expect any visits, though. We'll probably be too busy shagging."

I giggled at my funniness. Cas, Lily, Marlene and Alice were not as impressed.

"Oi," Alice poked me in my gut, making me twitch. "Stop laughing, you git," she continued to poke me when I showed no signs of receding. "Lee!"

"What?" I laughed some more. "What do you expect? I hardly know either guy, women. You are aware this conversation's going to reach nowhere." When they looked very slightly disbelieving, I sat up straight. "You _are_ aware - right?"

"Er," Marlene scratched her head. "Didn't look that way, to be completely frank." (Subconsciously I noticed Alice twitch, which made me very slightly amused - she was so in love, it wasn't even funny. But back to what Marlene said -)

My mouth opened slightly. And stayed open.

I exhaled a little noisily. "Okay, that's absolutely ridiculous."

"Well," Cas offered a bit of clarification. "You _have _been talking to Sirius a lot these last few days. Plus you guys came in together last night and all, and you seemed pretty chummy. And Sebastian's got his eyes fixed on you for a while now, not to forget that entertaining conversation earlier this morning..." Cas shrugged and gave me an amused grin. "By the gods, girl, you've got two total hotties hanging on your tail and you're telling me you didn't even know!"

"Uh," I said eloquently. "I've been talking to Remus too - doesn't mean he's falling in love with me or whatever," I rolled my eyes and tapped my quill onto the parchment in a quick rhythm.

"Remus is different," Lily said dismissively. "Remus is Remus. I get the feeling he walks the bender half the time - it's very possible he has a thing for Black as well, I don't know. But don't you escape this," she added when she saw me scribbling on my parchment. With a quick swipe, she'd snatched away my beloved writing implement and was staring down at me with an imperious glare. "We're having this girl talk, it's much more entertaining than Transfiguration right now and I honestly _don't _want to go over inanimate to animate transfiguration when we could be going over your yummy love life."

"Er," I blinked before going over everything they'd said. "Okay, hold up," I held up a finger. "One - I've had maybe four conversations with Sirius Black, and that's not enough to warrantee a closer look into our nonexistent relationship." I rolled my eyes. "I don't like him that way. He doesn't like me that way. Throppe would probably prefer it staying that way and I am in no way going to tangle with that little twit. He's just really nice to look at and," I shrugged unrepentantly."Hey, I'm getting my eye candy up close and it comes with entertaining conversation at that, so it's all cool in my book."

"And two," I continued and then tossed my parchment away in total excitement. "Sebastian Grey's got his eye on me? What the fuck, when did that happen? Tell me more! Mm, he's really good-looking, isn't he?" I closed my eyes and fell back into the grass before sitting up again. "You reckon he'll ask me out?"

There was a small pause. My four awesome friends looked at me with slight disbelief. "Oh, Lee," Lily shook her head with a laugh, but I wasn't interested in her affectionately bemoaning my personality. I was on a mission here.

"Well?" I needled them impatiently. "Tell me!"

"Well," Alice began with a deep breath. I trained my ears for one of the biggest trials of their lives.

"I first heard about it on the train, to be honest - from Cadaroc Dearborn of all people, that too - you know, that lanky Hufflepuff? And then it cropped up again when I was talking to Andrew Phillips - who's smitten with Marlene, by the way -" (I grinned at Marlene, who's cheeks turned a bit pink with pleasure) "- And then Cas was talking to Emmeline, who apparently heard Keith Newton and Morris Lowe badgering Sebastian to 'ask the girl out already, she'd been hanging out with Black lately and he didn't want to lose her before he even got her, the goddamn numbskull.' And then Lily heard that blonde Hufflepuff - whatshername, Vivian? You know, Throppe's friend - well, she was talking to this other girl about how she'd been hoping Sebastian would ask her out this year but obviously he wouldn't because 'he'd been staring at 'that joke of a Ravenclaw' all throughout dessert the other night and he was obviously going to ask her out pretty soon, so there's no point even prepping because he wasn't even going to look at her now - that stupid little bitch was always ruining things for her' - and you also kinda made things a bit _hard_ for him -" she stopped to snicker at her incredibly smart pun "- earlier this morning, and that's definitely a blaring light in a sea of darkness that you most definitely cannot ignore... so basically, it's all over the school now that the guy's smitten with you and he's probably going to ask you out by the end of the week. Or maybe next, I don't know exactly. Vivian detests the hell out of you though, so watch out for a hex or two."

She paused for another breath.

"Did you get all that?" she asked me with a frown.

"Er," I tilted my head.

Following which I (quite unsurprisingly) began to squeal. "Iamsoexcitedholyfuckonfuck," I started doing this weird motion sorta thing. "Fuckfuckfuckfuckthisissoawesome," I wiggled my hips a bit too wildly, totally ignoring my friends who were too busy cracking up on the grass to bother joining me in my happiness. "Ohmygod," I stopped short. "Iseducedhimwithoatmealholyshittingfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck-"

Cas slammed me in the face with a cold Aguamenti. I sputtered. "Shut the fuck up, you twat." she told me bluntly.

"Fuck you," I told her delightedly and then pushed the dripping hair out of my forehead. "You can't bring me down from this happiness."

"Yeah?" Marlene grinned. "Well, you still have to do your Arithmancy homework for Mass."

I paused. "Damn you." I glared at the offending parchment strewn all around me. "You fucker," I added for added emphasis.

"But look on the bright side," Lily said with a brilliant smile. "Throppe's not going to kill you for 'stealing her boyfriend' now."

"Hm," I considered as Cas started to glare at the mention of her arch nemesis. "That is quite a bright side," I said with a smile.

"Love you too, sweet pea," Marlene hummed before returning to her Charms homework. This was when I started bouncing with nervous excitement.

And then something really awesome happened.

"Er, Alice?" a really nice, deep voice said from behind us. All five of us flipped around to see Frank Longbottom standing there with a shy smile on his rather fetching face. My gaze turned to fix on the girl in question, who was (quite comically) completely frozen.

I caught Lily's gaze and lifted my chin in her direction. Quickly understanding my gesture, she lifted her elbow and then drove it into the little brunette's left side. Alice jumped rather suddenly before somehow scrambling to her feet - the perfect picture of panicked wonder. Like whoa, girl.

"Frank," she squeaked as she barely managed to avoid tripping on a stray inkwell. "Hi," she added, tucking her hair behind her ear. "What's up?"

Frank looked slightly awkward, which in turn looked very adorable. He was also staring at Alice's face rather intently, which was even more adorable. "Er," he started and then pulled a little book out of his back pocket. "I assume this is yours...?"

Alice gasped and almost snatched it out of the poor guy's hands. "My do-not-forget-notebook!" she started flipping through the pages quite rapidly. "I keep track of everything in it because I keep forgetting things but I lost it somewhere sometime ago and it didn't turn up anywhere - which is kind of ironic if you think of it, really, but pish-posh because my life is kind of the definition of irony if you look at it in a weird, kind of questionable way -" she realized she was rambling. "Uh," she looked up at Frank from underneath her eyelashes, looking cute as fuck. "Where did you find it?"

"Ehm," Frank cleared his throat. "It was in the crease of the sofa in the Common Room - I found it quite accidentally, actually - I didn't read it though," he added quickly, turning a bit red at the ears. "Only the first page to see who it belonged to, I swear -"

"Poo," Alice said dismissively before, in a fit of spontaneity, wrapping her arms around the Seventh Year's wiry frame. "Thank you," she said with a grateful smile.

Poor Frank turned red everywhere else too. "Er," he stuttered before awkwardly wrapping an arm around her as well. "It's no problem..."

They stayed that way for a few seconds. It was around this time when I suddenly realized that my mouth was halfway open to release a rather obnoxious little 'aw' - I closed my mouth with a barely audible click, but the sound was unfortunately loud enough to snap them out of their little moment.

The two of them leapt away from each other like the ground was on (some hot-as-hell) fire.

Lily and Marlene turned to give me a quick glare. My lips pulled into an apologetic grimace. God damn.

"Er," the two of them said together. "I'll just -" Frank gestured before taking a step back. "Castle," he added expressively.

"Yes," Alice agreed, and they stared at each other for a while longer.

"See you later," Alice said, and Frank jumped like no man's business. "Yes," he repeated, and just about hightailed it out of there.

"Thanks for returning my book!" Alice shouted after him with a wide-ass smile.

Frank stopped to turn around and give her a dazzling grin. I could actually see her mind melting into a puddle of brain mush right then and there. By golly, this was adorable. "It's no problem," he said with a wave. "I'll see you around!"

And then he left.

Alice sank down into the ground with an awestruck sigh. Marlene poked her arm. "You okay?"

Alice took about five painful seconds to complete a slight nod. "Uh," she said with a dreamy wave of her hand.

We nodded humorously. "Most definitely."

There was a small pause.

And then it finally dawned on me that I was still fully soaked.

* * *

**A/N: **

Hello people, chapter four is here to greet you awesome readers. (thankyousomuchforgivingthisachance, holyhellthisexcitesme)

(To be honest, I'm not as happy with this chapter as the last one - it seems a bit too scattered for me, but I didn't know how to fix it, so... well, the next chapter will be better, I promise! :D)

So, do review to tell me what you feel. To the completely phenomenal reviewers of the previous chapter - I offer you a hundred thousand thanks. I'm so glad that you guys like Lee, she's like my baby and I can't help but feel a bit proud.

Tell me about what you think! I'm always eager to read about your perspectives.

Also, a shoutout to the people that favorite'd and followed - every little notification is a small boost in my confidence in the story, and I'm honestly ecstatic every time I'm surprised with one.

I honestly love you guys.

Love,

R.


	5. Chapter 5

"Mate, are you in love with me or something?" I asked abruptly as I deposited my backpack onto the wooden table in front of him.

Dear Sirius looked up to give me the raise of a deadpan eyebrow. To be honest, I was kind of disappointed, I'd hoped he would choke on his air or something - but hey, a person probably gets used to surprises when he fiddles with the authorities on an everyday basis.

"Not as far as I know," he mused as he placed his pretty grey quill down with a purposeful snap. "Why do you ask?"

"Cos apparently, everybody thinks so - there couldn't possibly be any other reason why you're talking to me," I rolled my eyes. "And that is not even _considering_ my sparkling wit, charming temperament and my oh-so-amazing flair for conversation, which is kind of stupid to be honest. Why wouldn't they consider it, it's obviously what attracted you in the first place."

"Ehm," Sirius said.

"Yes, exactly," I nodded and pulled out my Charms essay. So much homework. "What does Throppe think of all this then?"

Sirius pushed his luscious black hair out of his forehead and gave me a tilt of his head. It was around this point that I noticed that his eyes were a rather pretty shade of gray - almost as grey as the quill he was holding. This interested me.

"Dude, your eyes are so pretty," I said in awe. I felt a slight turning in my tummy that I was suspicious of, but then I realized it was only because he was so pretty, curse his attractiveness. "Come closer, let me get a better look," I added and then wrapped my fingers around his messy tie to pull him towards me - you know, just in case.

Sirius made a funny noise at the back of his throat as he was yanked forward. "-don't think she does," he finished with a raised eyebrow, and I realized that he had in fact been speaking all throughout my marvel of his magnificent eyes.

"Didn't catch that," I hummed as I angled his head for better measure. "Look at that, you have tiny silver swirlies in the grey too, it's so pretty, I want your eyes."

"I like your eyes though," Sirius said conversationally. "They're like melty ice cubes, which is kind of funny because you're kind of the complete opposite with all that happy shit." I muttered in absent agreement and marveled some more. The guy was a lucky son of a bitch, seriously. If things didn't work out in the Wizarding World, he could always turn tail to become a model in the Muggle one - god knows he'd be plastered all over the walls of every preteen chick in the country.

Aw, I wanna be good-looking too.

"So," he said musingly before giving me an impish smirk. "Are we going to kiss now?"

_Whoa there cowboy_, I said in my head before realizing that we were actually quite close distance-wise - so close, in fact, that if I moved just a bit more, my nose would probably brush against his. Which was interesting but not altogether good for my health and well-being because Throppe, oh no, get back girlie.

"Eh," I let him go.

"Aw," he pouted, which I found quite adorable. "I'm disappointed."

"You horny little chit," I said but I was grinning. "It would have been a good kiss," I added, quite obviously incapable of shame.

"It would've," he agreed whole-heartedly. "Sure you don't want to give it a shot?"

"You know," I waved a hand dismissively. "Throppe and all that. Plus friendship and all that too."

"Makes sense," Sirius said mock-disappointedly, before looking down at his essay again.

I heaved a slight sigh before getting back to mine as well. A few minutes passed in comfortable silence before I decided I kinda needed a few references. I then spent the next minute contemplating whether or not it was actually worth it to get up and find some when - bless timing and its ability to keep me in a state of perpetual procrastination - I saw something exceedingly eye-catching.

And it came in the form of a trio of Sixth Year Ravenclaws - Morris Lowe, Andrew Phillips and (oh, you know it) Sebastian Grey.

Swoon, hottie alert.

"Oh, hello," I hummed out of the corner of my mouth, watching as the three of them took over a table by one of the windows, completely ignorant of my blatant admiration.

"Hm?" Sirius looked up once again before frowning at me and then following my gaze. "Oh," he said, and his lips turned up. "Which one?"

"Grey," I sighed and then propped my chin onto the palm of my hand. "Man, he's pretty."

"I heard about the thing with the oatmeal," he said with a chuckle. "Did it actually happen?"

"What, everybody knows about that?" I turned into a fire alarm. "I like breakfast okay, it's my favorite meal of the day."

"Wait, so it's true!" he stared at me before starting to laugh. "Are you serious?"

"Shut up, you dillhole," I tried not to punch him because hello, Sebastian was sitting _right there._ "Keep your voice down!"

He snorted on for a few more (try twenty-three, I counted) seconds before recovering slightly to throw the guy a considering look. I said, "Subtlety!" but he actually ignored me, the fucker. "You sure know how to pick 'em," he said with a laugh.

"Oh," I raised my eyebrows. "You're telling me? Need I remind you about your current choice in girlfriend, you hypocritical numpty?"

"Er," he said, his lips turning up at my choice of word. "She's kinda hot, mate. No seriously, have you seen her... well, her everything? Plus we have a purely physical relationship, no commitment included, so it's all cool, really."

I thought, _what are you saying, it's Throppe, are you stupid, _before reconsidering that last part of his explanation. _It's all cool, _he says. Is he out of his mind?

"Uh, Sirius?" I hesitated. "Uh," I said again.

"What?" his lips quirked again. "Was I a bit too free with my wording? I didn't think you'd mind, but I guess I was wrong -"

"Uh," my eyebrows furrowed. I did not like this speech impediment. "No, I'm cool with that, I'm actually pleased that you're so open with me, but that's besides the point. Dude, are you deluding yourself or something?"

"Hm?" Sirius frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Er, it's Throppe," I said as if it was obvious, which it was. "You're telling me you didn't know what you were getting into?"

"What?" Sirius looked at me incredulously. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"Mate," I raised my eyebrows but then I reconsidered. "Nah, forget it, it's not my place to meddle..."

"No, no," Sirius held up a hand before pinning me with a disbelieving look, his legs starting to bounce to an indistinguishable rhythm. "You don't get to say something like that and then just _stop._ Tell me what you're on about!"

"Er, well," I thought about it before deciding not to tell him everything, it wasn't my place. I already felt very wrong about all this. "I don't think she has the same opinion is all. She likes you, mate. Whatever this relationship is, she's _really _committed to it. And she obviously expects you to be the same." I let that sink into his head and felt a bit better about my blatant censoring when I saw the slightly horrified expression on his face. God knows how he'd react if I'd told him about that shrine that was rumored to have been constructed under her dorm bed, or those delusions about their marriage and 'legacy' that she'd been on about for the past few years.

Hey, don't look at me like that, it's all over the school - he ought to have known, the oblivious git. But whatever, it isn't my place to tell. Probably Potter or Remus, or even Pettigrew, but not me.

I looked at his dumbstruck face. Poor guy. "Er, I'm sure it's fine if you guys have been cool throughout your 'relationship'." I made sure the obvious quotations around the word were indistinguishable. "Uh," I hesitated. "Make good choices."

Sirius remained silent.

I felt it was time to leave, curse him. I'd now have to give up a prime spot for ogling Sebastian Grey, god damn. But then I looked at Sirius again, who looked like he was on the verge of an existential crisis, and I decided, perhaps hightailing it out of there was the best way to go.

I got up and picked up my bag. "So hey, I've gotta go back to my Common Room, I'm really supposed to be helping Cas with Herbology, so... I'll just go. See you!" And then I started brisk-walking.

"What?" I heard Sirius say. "You don't take Herbology!" he sounded a bit freaked out, to be honest.

"No, but best friends help each other," I looked behind and threw him a pious look, projecting goodness out of my very being. "I'll catch you later, Sirius!" and then I exited the Library doors, tossing an apologetic look at a fuming Madame Pince as I left.

Whoa, dodged a bullet there. Good luck, Sirius.

May the gods be with you.

* * *

_Now if you take into consideration the logistics of Wingardium Leviosa, it is only a tool for levitation and not movement in the lighter medium. Mobilicorpus, on the other hand, is meant for moving human bodies in air, but again is restricted to only movement of (kinda) living beings. There is no spell in existence that allows for manipulative movement of inanimate objects in an atmosphere.  
_

_And then we have spells like Accio and Reparo, where objects do move from place to place depending on the position of the caster/the original positions of various elements, but there still isn't any flexibility when it comes to stopping, turning and generally manipulating an object's path. There is typically no middle ground when it comes to telekinesis._

I paused in my scribbling and stared down at the messy page. Quickly flipping to the front of my notebook, I found that little sub-note I'd added in about a week ago, about the Imperturbable Charm.

_The Imperturbable Charm requires for repulsion of objects, animate or inanimate, from the surface in question. It remains slightly problematic to cast the charm on a floor, because the repulsion created would not be object-specific and would instead propel every single object into the air, and with gravity acting in opposition we'd most probably find ourselves with an impromptu bouncy castle. Also, the geographical boundaries would be limited within the spell's possibilities, which altogether renders the idea a flawed, if incredibly entertaining way to go._

But if _I_ wanted to stay in the air... what if I cast the charm onto the soles of my shoes?

I looked out the window for a second and then stared. The Quidditch team was tumbling out of the Quidditch Pitch after a long, hard evening of practice. Andrew Phillips, team Captain, offered everybody a cheery encouragement before leading them towards the Castle, brooms in hand.

I resisted the urge to slam a hand into my face before drawing a thought bubble into one of the corners. _Look up broom design spells_, I wrote inside it.

Stupid, stupid.

A few days had passed and things were slowly coming into that lag you get in the beginning of the year - you know, the 'you've finally settled into things but it's still only a month into the semester so what-are-we-supposed-to-do' kind of lag. My acquaintance with Sirius and Remus had set into my daily routine and I was actually quite happy to call them friends now, while I was beginning to talk to Sebastian a little more often. We'd bonded over our hate for all things asparagus-related and were slowly settling into that weird dance between acquaintance and not-friend - you know the one, don't pretend to be clueless. It was kind of awkward, to be honest. He was my first potential relationship after that disaster of an attempt in Fifth Year with this Hufflepuff in his Seventh - it had lasted all of two weeks and he'd been a jealous little git with an ego the size of the Sahara, don't know why I said yes in the first place. I ended it when he'd punched in Morris's face for asking me a Transfiguration question of all things - honestly, that had been completely ridiculous, even by Hogwarts standards.

But personal life aside, I was beginning to flourish in Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, taking to their practical components like no man's business. Mass's toughness had rubbed off on my ability to catch on to things, and I was slowly establishing my position at the top of the class. I was now doodling Arithmantic equations on parchment corners on a regular basis, and I'd even begun to experiment with the foundations of a few ordinary spells - like _Scourgify_ and _Evanesco,_ in order to explore the idea of the _Non-Being_ (which was where vanished objects disappeared into).

Ancient Runes, on the other hand, was a colorful ground of study, and when mixed with Arithmancy, was a powerful tool for toying with mundane objects. Professor Carver had opened up a bit about our NEWT exams, and he'd said something about our first NEWT project that we were to concentrate on for the second half of our Sixth Year. I'd already started to consider different ideas - I'd asked Mama to send me a little notebook plus stationary by post and I was slowly filling it in with prospective concepts and possibilities.

Right now, mostly, I'd begun playing with the idea of flying.

And not just broom-flying, oh no. From an objective point of view, I'd always found brooms a bit restrictive, not only in terms of size but also of flexibility and mobility. Brooms were huge, clunky and unmanageable without a person's full concentration, and also quite temperamental when it came to people and their ability to take to them.

As a non-flyer myself, I had a particular distaste for brooms... especially after that time in First Year when I'd been thrown off of mine during that first flying class. I had managed to pass, of course - we Ravenclaws never fail at anything - but I'd still been quite wary of the carriers after that.

Imagine it, a tiny, adorable, eleven year old me getting tossed off of a grumpy little toothpick without the comfort of any warning _or_ any safety measure - it's a wonder I wasn't scarred for life. Plus, I lived in the Muggle world and I hadn't prepared for anything like that at all. Hogwarts really wasn't all that accommodating towards the Muggleborns and the Muggle-raised.

But on the off-side, even non-broomers liked the idea of flying. Brooms had spoiled it for me. I wanted a better experience.

This, in addition to the war that was going on outside the castle walls, was only making me all the more enthusiastic about the entire idea - I mean, imagine the boost it would give to our side - we'd have _so much_ mobility - at least those who managed to work the awesome little things.

What, you ask?

Well, I'd picked up a book on Greek mythology the other day (god, that place was a goldmine for ideas and information), and I'd happened across a passage about the Greek god Hermes, the god of thieves, and there it was, the perfect pre-NEWT project/prospective business possibility/unnamed advantage/all-around kick-ass mother-fucking thriller.

Magically inclined turbo-booster flying fucking shoes.

Fuck yes, I was doing this.

* * *

DADA class had been fun these past few days.

Quick had finally decided to introduce practical instruction into our schedule, which was awesome because we were learning all about strategic placement and defensive magic - dodging, shielding, countering and even attacking through paired demonstrations and tutorials. The lessons had been surprisingly pleasant because he hadn't just started shooting spells at us as soon as class started... which was what most of us had been expecting, to be honest - especially considering that jilting speech of his from his sparkling debut (ouch, mate) at the beginning of term. Rather, he had taken the time to show us really useful shields and demonstrate to us all the different ways of dodging things without inadvertently injuring ourselves, and these tutorials were scattered all throughout a steady flow of education about the Dark Arts and how we could battle them.

The classes were amazing, Quick was a goldmine of information and I had begun to needle him for more at the end of class on a regular basis. Quick had, in turn, begun to hate my presence more than most of my classmates, which I felt happy about. I knew even Cas, Lily and the Marauders had been stopping by once in a while and I cheered them on. The poor guy, he was only twenty-six years old and he was already a bitter old sod.

We hadn't started dueling yet - the mere idea was actually quite ridiculous, especially considering our mediocre education (like seriously). Some Hufflepuff had once asked him why he wasn't organizing any tournaments for us already and he'd laughed in his face, the poor berk.

"Do you want to humiliate yourselves?" he'd asked us bluntly. "You're nowhere _near_ the dueling stage. I'll introduce it when it needs to be introduced. _Tournaments_," he'd scoffed under his breath.

Most of the class had been quite indignant at his dismissal of their abilities, and to be honest, even I'd been a bit miffed, but he had a very strong point.

God, we were arrogant.

Also, I'd been scouring the shelves for some time now in search of new spells, ordinary and wacky, in order to help further my studies in DADA and Arithmancy. My notebook had been filling up quite quickly over the course of the month - I would have to owl Mama for more, definitely. Of all of my friends, only Cas and Lily knew about the notebook, and Lily only of the existence of it (the redhead was itching for a glance). Cas was the only one who'd gotten a peek into exactly what I had been doing, and she'd been suitably impressed.

"What are you going to do with all these plans?" she asked me as she flipped through the diagrams and designs, an excited look on her pretty face.

"I don't know," my eyebrows creased. "I'm pretty sure I'll be starting my own little thing, but I'm also pretty sure that most of that stuff is most probably impossible, so..."

"Not too sure of that," Cas murmured under her breath. "More research and I'm pretty positive you'll get at a few somethings."

"Eh," I shrugged. "I've got a long way to go. This book'll be a good memory though."

"Whatever you say," Cas looked at me speculatively before giving the book back to me.

We left it at that.

To be honest, that notebook had actually started to become a huge component of my life - it was the beginning of my research into spell logistics and methodologies, and I knew it would be helpful sometime in the future.

* * *

Something to consider about the last few days - Mulciber and his bitch gang hadn't been up to much trouble and things outside _also_ seemed to be kind of calm - I didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but I was going to take advantage of the light atmosphere and leave it at that. Like mate, fuck that shit. I needed a break from things.

The fact that next weekend was a Hogsmeade weekend didn't really hurt. It had come at an opportune time, I knew a lot of people were looking forward to getting away from the Daily Shithole of a Prophet and the pressurizing schedule. I'd been aching to check out Tomes and Scrolls - that little bookstore off the High Street - for a while now, and maybe even Honeydukes and Scrivenshafts, I dunno.

We'd finally have some time to ourselves, thank god.

So I was sitting with Cas in our usual spot by the window when it happened.

"Quit your moaning about your essay," I told Cas with a grin. "It's your fault you took the subject in the first place."

"I need to become a Healer," Cas whined, dropping her head onto the wooden table. "But I can't do it, it's bloody fucking ridiculous."

"You could've taken up my offer to become my partner," I told her as I scribbled some more. "We could've done it together."

"Yes, but I have neither the talent nor the inclination to become an Experimentalist," Cas told me with a little groan. "Plus I like the idea of helping people as a Healer. It's only _Herbology -"_

"I'm going to do it," I put down my quill and got out of my seat.

"What? Wait -"

"URGENT SUMMONS FOR AGENT DONOVAN, THIS IS A STATE-LEVEL EMERGENCY, DO YOU COPY?"

"Lee, you little shit -"

Life went on like this shit was common - which it was, I think this was the fifth time I'd flagged him down. Cas fumed in embarrassment, I got back to my doodling and Kurt appeared, making all things right again.

I was happily adding the finishing touches to the caricature of our current Minister Bagnold when I heard him say, "So Cas, (loud inhale) areyoudoinganythingforHogsmeade... this... weekend?"

Wait, what?

A hush fell across the Common Room as everybody registered what the hot Seventh Year had said. Obviously, everybody had just been pretending to not pay any attention to their awkward conversation, the snoopy fuckers. I lifted my head to gape at his unexpected initiative while everybody in the room still 'pretended' to not care about the girl's answer.

...an answer that wasn't coming. A quick check determined that the girl had turned into a petite popsicle. Dear god.

I drove a finger into her side. "Cas," I whispered as I poked her again. "He just asked you a question, say something."

Cas opened her mouth and made a funny noise. Like 'uuuuuu' in the back of your throat, you know what I mean?

Kurt turned red at my bluntness, but I did not care, it had been more than a month - do you realize how long that is?

"Cas," I said again. She squinted at me and then regarded Kurt with wide-eyed wonder. "Uuh."

"Uh," Kurt said back to her, obviously on the verge of a panic-attack. "Uh."

"Oh, for god's sake!" Surprisingly, this outburst did not in fact come from me. Near the fireplace, I saw Seventh Year Pete Buckley throw up his hands. "Get on with it already!" And then, as the Common Room turned to give him deep glowers, he suddenly turned pink and mumbled, "I'm sorry, did I say that out loud?"

"Shut up, you dumb sod," fellow Seventh Year Franz something said, bringing her palm against his rather thick-looking skull. "Ignore us," she said at large, and the Common Room turned to look at Kurt and Cas with 'expert subtlety' again.

"God, you nosy little chits," Kurt said as he ran a hand across his face. I felt a bit guilty but holy shit, they take _ages._

"Dorcas," he said, and took hold of her shoulders. She melted in the face of his 'glorious blue orbs' while I hurled on the side. "Will you do me the honor," he stopped again. Did he just stop again? I picked up my quill threateningly and he gulped when he saw the weapon in my hands. "Will you do me the honor of - of going to Hogsmeade with me?" and then he pinned her with this swoon-worthy expression on his face, I'm sure Cas was dying inside.

The Common Room held a breath. Cas did not answer.

Ten seconds passed. Kurt looked to be back on track for a panic-attack. I pinched the bridge of my nose and peered around to look at her face.

Dear lord, she was frozen again.

"_Cas,__" _I hissed from the corner of my mouth. This was _ridiculous._ "_Say yes!"_

"Oh," Cas turned cherry red. "Oh, I'd love to, I'd love to!" And then she threw her arms around his neck.

"YES, FINALLY!" I shouted and leapt from my chair in joy while the rest of the Common Room threw themselves into chaotic celebration.

"Took you long enough!"

"Mate, you owe me three Galleons!"

"Aw, that was so cute, finally!"

"I wish I was her!"

As you can see, their relationship was a popular cause.

Greg popped out of nowhere, my quill in hand. "Er," he said when I regarded him with a puzzled gaze. "You tossed it to the side while he was asking her out," he explained and blushed when I gave him an affectionate smile. "Thanks, kid," I said to him and then he disappeared again.

"_Lee!" _I heard Cas squeal, and turned around just in time to catch her tackling me to the ground. "_AH!"_

"Well said," I congratulated her and gave Kurt a warning smile. "You know how it goes," I told him very sweetly and was happy to see him shift in discomfort. "I won't hurt her," he promised and Cas got up to tackle him as well.

"Let's go make out," Cas said to him happily and then dragged the blushing guy out of the Common Room, everybody cheering in their wake.

I looked back at my Potions essay.

"Well, it's just you and me, then," I sighed and then got back to work.

* * *

On the off-side, Sirius and Throppe hadn't actually broken up and were still going strong, thank god. I'd been a bit worried after that conversation I'd had with him the other day because... well if he did break up with her, she'd sure as hell come after my bloody fucking life, and I wasn't really looking forward to having my tonsils clawed out of my throat so... well, go Throppe and Sirius, I love you guys.

We talked every now and then, just the same as before. He didn't bring it up again, bless him. I wouldn't know what to say to him otherwise.

The week went by pretty quickly - a few days ago, a Seventh Year Hufflepuff and one of the Fourth Year Gryffindors, Kent and Berkeley, if I'm not mistaken, got two of the Purple Letters. You know, the ones that guaranteed shit news from the Ministry... most commonly death in the family. Their faces had turned ashen the moment the owls landed in front of them, and they hardly ever came to classes after that. It had been a pretty big hit for the school; it had been the first Purple Ambush of the season and it had only made people ache even more for an escape of a weekend. I hoped to god I wouldn't ever get one, the worst thing in the world for me would be if _anything _happened to my mother.

She was a Muggle. She couldn't defend herself, not even physically. She owned a _flower_ shop for crying out loud.

It only made me focus more in DADA. We were kind of protected inside the castle but this shit was getting serious, mate. And I didn't know what else to do.

Plus Mulciber and his crew were getting a bit too free with their stupidity, and nothing seemed capable of stopping them. If I couldn't help out any other way, I could at the very least learn how to protect myself and my loved ones.

Curse that idiot, Volde-whatever. If he wanted to take over the country he could have just as easily done so through the right channels. God knows the Ministry's filled with a bunch of morons masquerading around as 'legitimate professionals'. It was all pointless.

Really.

* * *

And then there was the other side of the proverbial spectrum, where a huge truckload of superficial nonsense continued to weigh down on the back of my mind. I couldn't even think clearly with all this utter bullshit cluttering my brain processes.

Tomorrow was a Hogsmeade weekend.

Almost all of my friends had dates, curse them.

Lily had accepted an offer from this Hufflepuff Seventh Year named John Moneybag (okay, maybe that's not his last name but it _is_ something close to it - I unfortunately do not remember what it is, don't blame me), while Marlene was going with Andrew Phillips. Cas, as expected, was spending the entire day with Kurt (the lovebirds, they were so mushy I wanted to barf) while Alice was going to be hanging out with Frank, as 'friends'. He'd taken a shine to her after that moment of cute by the lake the other day, and they were well on their way to becoming a cracking couple. The little chit.

Alice, _I_ am your friend. You can go with me.

(But to be honest, hell would burn before I attached myself as a third wheel to any of those couples.)

There _was _a good reason for me to be bitter, though. That asshole Sebastian Grey still hadn't asked me out. And there was less than a day left.

"Cas, I am sad," I said with a gloomy sigh. My best friend pushed back her blonde wisps before looking up to give me a sympathetic look. "He'll ask you," she said consolingly. "Don't worry about it."

"He's not going to ask me, the coward," I said with a frown. I looked down at the table and glared. "Why is he so unconfident, he's too good-looking for that shit!"

"He just really likes you," Cas soothed. I liked the sound of that. "Give him more time, I'm sure he'll ask you today."

"It's almost curfew," I said, deadpan. "I don't have any time left to give."

But then this made me think, why was I waiting for _him _to ask _me _out?

I am a feminist and proud. I don't ask to see the balls of every man on a huge fucking pitchfork but I damn well do believe in the equality of the sexes, excuse me.

"Okay," I decided and got out of my seat.

"Wait, where are you going?" Cas asked but I was already marching over to the armchair where Sebastian was sitting in the company of his fellow dorm mates. "Hello," I said as I placed myself directly in front of him.

"Lee, hi," Sebastian looked up and turned a little rosy while the others fell quiet. I don't know if they were smirking or whatever, and I didn't really care - my eyes were trained on the berk in front of me. He looked really cute. God.

"Sebastian, darling," I said, sugar-sweet and straight-faced. I was feeling hella empowered, no time for blushing or anything. "Tomorrow's a Hogsmeade weekend."

The guy's mouth dropped open slightly in surprise, his cheeks adopting a deeper hue. "Er," he said as he adjusted the collar of his robe with endearing discomfort. "Yeah, about that..."

I glared at him, my foot starting to tap to a quick rhythm. I wasn't wearing my robe and my tie was undone, so I knew I looked a bit messy but I was sure as hell not going to prep for this shit. "Yeah," I said as I crossed my arms threateningly. He gulped. "It's been two weeks."

His blue eyes widened as he sat back slightly, the armchair squeaking with the shift in his position. His movements gave me a questionably insane idea and I adopted a wicked smirk before planting my hands onto the armrests on either side of him, feeling like a total badass.

"Sebastian," I said lowly. "You haven't asked me out, so I do believe it falls upon me to do the deed," I got a little closer to him before ducking my head near his ear. My lips were almost touching his lobe now, and I could see him starting to shiver. This made me feel very good indeed.

"Sebastian," I whispered, and he did his best not to shudder. "Will you do me the honor," I brushed my lips against his ear again, and he twitched, "of escorting me to Hogsmeade this weekend?"

Silence.

I didn't want to look up and away from his dumbstruck face, but I knew every conversation had stopped by now in exchange for the show I was putting on. "Fuck," I heard Keith Newton say. He sounded appreciative.

Sebastian's eyes were trained on my own ice hues. A few seconds passed.

"Holy shit," he said with a rushed exhale, turning red immediately after the words had left his mouth. I didn't think he'd wanted to say that out loud. "Uh."

"Sebastian?" I asked him sweetly.

"Yes," he replied quickly.

"You were saying?"

"Yes."

My smirk turned into a grin. I felt very pleased with myself.

I released the armrests, laughing when he gulped in a huge breath of air. "I'll pick you up at eleven, then," I said to him normally. With a slight kiss on his cheek, I gave the quiet Common Room a cheeky wink before making my way up the stairs.

Up in my dorm, I collapsed on the floor. Holy shit, hadIactuallydonethatohmyfuckinggod -

I rummaged around for my notebook but then realized I'd inadvertently left my stuff downstairs with Cas. And I was sure as hell not going to go back down, that would completely ruin my exit. Imagine this awesome chick successfully making her dramatic exit before popping in a few seconds later, blushing like a little girl because she'd forgotten her backpack of all things. Not impressive, mate. I hoped Cas would bring my stuff up too.

I remembered my awesomeness again. FuckonfuckIdidn'tactuallydothat -

Sebastian's face. Ohsweetmerlinhelookedsocute -

Cas burst into the dorm with our stuff. "You did that!" she shrieked and then looked at me before shrieking again. "You actually did that!"

"I asked him out," I told her, dumbfounded. "How did I do that?"

"Did you see his face?" Cas continued to shriek. "Did you see everybody's face? I think everyone's in love with you now. The guys, most definitely - that display was probably too sexy for them to handle."

"But how did I do that," I said to her disbelievingly. "Did you put something in my pumpkin juice?"

"No," Cas told me absent-mindedly. "I didn't know you could be that... _assertive_." She said that last word very suggestively.

I tossed my quill at her face. She sputtered. "How am I going to face him tomorrow?" I moaned.

"What, are you kidding?" Cas asked me incredulously. "Didn't you see his face? The guy probably can't get enough of you now. You have nothing to worry about."

"You think?" I asked her doubtfully. "I don't know if I can do this sexy thing."

"Eh," Cas waved a hand. "Don't worry about it, obviously it comes naturally to you. I wonder how long it'll be till he jumps your bones." A sly smirk started to stretch across her face - "No, I'd say it's about how long it'll be till _you_ jump _his_ bones."

"Shut up," I turned red. I had no defense, really. She kind of wasn't all that off the mark.

"Mm," Cas collapsed on her bed. "This is a story for the kids, mate."

I scrambled to my feet before jumping on top of her. She squealed rather shrilly. "Not as good as yours, Dork-ass," I told her with an unabashed grin.

"Shut up, don't call me that," she threw me off of her. I landed on the floor with a painful thud. Fucker. "Get to it now, you've got a lot to look forward to tomorrow."

"Sebastian!" I gasped. "I asked him out, did I do that?"

"Lee, shut the fuck up," Cas rolled her eyes.

But seriously guys. How did I do that.

* * *

**A/N:**

Hey guys.

Don't throw tomatoes at me okay, I had writer's block. Still do, actually. I'm pretty sure it'll get better tho.

To the reviewers of the last chapter - you guys are awesome sauce, no doubt about it. How can people be so sweet, my god. I love you guys. Also the favoriters. And the followers. And the readers in general. Man, you guys are actually patient enough for this shit. I love you guys, honestly.

I'm really sorry it took so long.

Oh, and _do_ tell me what you think, I'd love to hear your opinions. The reviews give me ideas sometimes. It's always fascinating to look at different would-be's.

Love,

R.


	6. Chapter 6

I'd rolled out of bed at six 'o' clock in the morning.

Yes, I know, _c'est impossible, please take your lies and exit my presence _and all that blah but I'd been too goddamn wired for sleeping, what with Hogsmeade and all. I'd thrown off my blanket, stomped into the bathroom, finished getting fresh and sanitary in twenty minutes flat and then sat on my bed in my towel and underwear with an expression of ridiculous dismay for the rest of the hour because _hello,_ I'd gotten out of bed _at six 'o' clock_ in the _morning_, this was_ blasphemy, _curse my bloody body.

_Bloody _being the operative word. My 'flow' had kicked off sometime during the night, if you get my drift. I was officially in store for a mildly uncomfortable gut-fuck and an equally discomfiting half-cramp in both of my legs for the rest of the day, fucking menstruation. Obviously, I couldn't wear white now - take no chances.

But on the brighter side, thank god for pissed witches and their ability to innovate, at least now I could take comfort in the fact that I wouldn't have to shove a tampon up my secret chamber for the next four days. Lucky me.

So once seven 'o' clock came rolling by I decided to get off my ass and actually get dressed for the sake of menial activity. I hurriedly threw on a loose brown T shirt that revealed a bit of my midriff and a pair of my favorite denim shorts before looking at my best friend in momentary contemplation. Cas's head was buried deep into her pillow, her blonde hair a wispy mess, and her arms were sprawled around her head at exceedingly odd angles that made me wonder at her apparent flexibility. Gizmo was happily cuddled into a bit of blanket by her legs and was emitting gentle, coo-worthy snuffles every now and then. Neither of the two appeared to be braving the land of the living any time soon, the lucky fruitcakes.

I debated on whether or not I should wake her but then realized that if I did, I would have to suffer through her disbelief for the next hour and a half and I didn't really fancy doing that at _seven in the morning, _you understand why. And so I thought, _hell no_, and marched out of there alone, wand in pocket and notebook in hand just in case there wasn't anyone fun to talk to. Thank god for breakfast anyway, the yummy goodness. Who needed people? They can go fuck all. Off with their heads!

Mm, breakfast.

There wasn't anyone I knew at the Ravenclaw table but I was somewhat unsurprised to see my brother sitting alone on the Gryffindor side - his friends were runts slightly lazier than he was but he, in complete contrast to me, was a shamefully early bird. If it weren't for the fact that he was a masculine clone of our lovely mother I'd have automatically assumed he was secretly adopted.

"Mornin', runt," I said to Ben as I slipped into the spot next to his. I was unamused to see a shocked expression spread across his slowly-losing-baby-fat face.

"What are you doing up at," he paused to check his watch. "At _seven fifteen in the morning?_"

"Well, how do I put this - I'm shedding on the inside," I said to him with epic flatness.

Ben took on a revolted expression before sighing in resignation - he'd been living with me for thirteen years now, he ought to be used to this shit. "I'm eating," he said half-heartedly, but he didn't look anywhere close to losing his appetite so I settled on ignoring him.

"So," I said and then snatched a bit of bacon off his plate. "You finished writing to Mama?"

"Er, yeah," he scratched his head. "Do you have your letter? I'm heading to the Owlery after breakfast."

"Mm," I said and then reached into my pocket for the wrinkled envelope. "Thanks, kiddo."

"Don't call me that," he told me with a petulant frown. "I'm turning fourteen in three weeks."

"And that makes a difference to me, how?" I asked him with a grin while simultaneously jotting down a quick birthday reminder in the back of my mind. An absentminded glance at the Hall entrance had me slipping out of my seat one more time - Lily was trooping in with a little smile on her face and Jimmy and Lionel weren't far behind. "Have fun on your first Hogsmeade trip, Benny," I ruffled his hair and walked away, giving him a belated grin at his annoyed squawk.

"_Lee?_" Lily stopped and stared, the perfect picture of theatrical incredulity. She was aptly dressed for a pleasant date in a pleasant village, with her hair up in a ponytail and a pretty floral dress that was sure to knock both John Moneybag's _and _Potter's socks off. Like ooh, sexy redhead. "The hell are you up at," she paused to cast a _Tempus_ while I made a mental note to research the charm - "At _seven twenty-three _in the morning?"

"I don't know, I'm excited," I passed over it quickly. "Come, Lily dearest, let's have _breakfast."_

I marched her over to the Ravenclaw table and we settled down in an empty spot. "I'm going with Sebastian to Hogsmeade today," I said as I placed my notebook on the bench next to my thigh before dropping a handful of walnuts and strawberries into my bowl of oatmeal. Yum_._

_"_What?_"_ Lily dropped her spoon - a bit dramatic, if you ask me, but then again I have no say in these things considering the show I had orchestrated in the Common Room last night.

(On a side note, had I really done that?)

"Er, I asked him out last night," I told her uncomfortably and then shoved my spoon into my mouth to avoid immediate elaboration.

"_What?" _Lily repeated, her mouth dropping even more at the steady onslaught of shock that I was obviously forcing upon her, the drama queen.

"Yeah, in the Common Room just before curfew - I cornered him in the armchair by the fire. I might have gone a bit Black Widow on his ass," I poured a bit of tea into a cup before taking a relaxed sip - mm, ginger.

"_What?" _Lily continued to emphasize with increasing proportions of theatricality. Jeez, Lily, I get it okay.

"I didn't even know I could do that." I placed my cup down and looked at her thoughtfully. "Maybe he gets turned on by assertion."

_What?! _I imagined her drone but then realized that she hadn't in fact said it one more time.

I paused and looked up to see her sitting there with her mouth open, at an apparent loss for monosyllabic words. "I should probably tell you everything from the beginning," I realized, mostly because she looked hella confused.

"Probably," Lily told me sarcastically but her bright green eyes were still communicating that strange mixture of shock and good humor - I'd always loved her eyes, they were so expressive. "Don't miss out on a single detail."

_"_Mm, okay," I agreed and then filled her in on her everything, voice modulation and all. Five minutes later, I was shamefully pleased to see an impressed look spread across her delicate features.

"You sly little tease," Lily laughed before shaking her head in abject disbelief. "Didn't think you had it in you."

"You're calling _me _a tease?" I needled her with a good-natured grin. "Potter ring any bells?"

"There's a mountain-sized difference between the two situations," Lily said dismissively before biting into her previously untouched toast. "Potter's an arrogant little shit with no sense of reservation. Sebastian, on the other hand, is actually _decent_." She forced down her ire to give me a cheeky grin. "And need I mention how you're completely mad for him, unlike me with the former?"

"That's a monumental exaggeration on all counts," I told her with a mocking sniff. "One, I'm plenty sure Potter isn't as bad as he portrays himself to be - it's probably just dreadful miscommunication or something - don't scoff, you know it's true. And two, I only just _like_ Sebastian. I'm really not looking for anything too serious right now," I popped a strawberry into my mouth.

Lily considered it before acquiescing with a slight exhale. "...probably," she said half-heartedly. "But miscommunication or not, I still don't like him."

I paused in my eating to stare at her with a bit of amused resignation. Sure, Lily. Of course you don't.

And the saddest part of it all? From what Sirius had told me over our frequent conversations, Potter wasn't even slightly kidding about his supposed affection for his 'Lilyflower'. It was only in terms of interaction that he tended to fail, and miserably at that, the unfortunate sod. And Lily was a stubborn little Gryffindor with unyielding beliefs and an equally firm preference for when things actually _made sense_. Potter, in all accounts, did not make an ounce of sense to her, in his 'undying love and devotion' _or_ in his mannerisms and personality, and this inadvertently scared her to death. James Potter and Lily Evans. Both of them were a proper contradiction.

And yet I couldn't help but think that they would be bloody incredible as a couple.

Lily, obviously following a mildly violent train of thought, stabbed into her eggs with a bit too much aggression. I sighed. The poor blighter, he was never going to get past that hurdle.

"The _hell _are you doing up and about at seven fifty in the bloody morning," a disbelieving voice interrupted our inner monologues. I turned around to see Cas in all her glory, staring at me with a face full of apparent astonishment.

"Couldn't sleep," I said and then ate another spoonful of oatmeal. "Mm, yum."

"Good morning, Cas," Lily snapped out of her thoughts enough to give the blonde a beautiful smile. "Here," I added, picking up my notebook to give Cas some space - the Hall had been slowly filling up with people over the course of the conversation and about half of Ravenclaw, as annoyingly early risers, had already occupied most of the table space.

"Is that the notebook?" Lily's eyes zeroed in on the gem as I placed it on the wooden tabletop. "The one you've been working in?"

"Yeah," I said humorously, and laughed when she continued to stare. "I take it you want a glimpse."

She looked at me pleadingly. "_Please?_"

I gave her a considering glance. The redhead was practically itching in her seat and how could I possibly resist those hopeful green eyes? For all his faults, Potter fell for the right kind of girl - manipulative. I slid the notebook over to her side and said, "Knock yourself out."

She pounced on it like she was a wildcat and it was her prey. Total Gryffindor.

I ignored the incoherent mutters coming from the distracted Gryffindor and switched my gaze over to Cas sitting next to me. "So," I said and forked some bacon into my mouth. "Let us engage in meaningless conversation. What are your plans for the day, my dear?"

And so we descended into superficiality and whiled away the rest of the morning - Alice and Marlene joined us before long and were quickly sucked into the commonplace web we were stuck inside. It was already knocking on ten thirty when I finally realized I had to get going.

It was time for my long-awaited date with Sebastian Grey.

* * *

"Hey," I grinned as I spotted the dark-haired hottie standing by the doorway.

Sebastian looked up and gave me a heart-stopping smile. It's safe to admit I died for the hundredth time. "Hi," he said and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, his voice a quiet tenor. "Shall we?"

"Happy to," I said delightedly and we packed ourselves into one of the carriages - Cas and Kurt tumbled in a few minutes later, their hair ruffled and their clothes a bit disheveled. I grinned at Cas who turned a bit red. They'd been doing remarkably well for such a new couple, to be honest - Kurt was already half in love with Cas, who had been floating around in a state of insurmountable bliss for about a week now.

"Hey, man," Sebastian and Kurt did the manly handshake while I smirked away at my blushing best friend. "Had a good time, then?" I asked her unashamedly and was justly rewarded with an unhealthy squint. "Is he a good snog?"

"Lee!" Cas tried to look scandalized but couldn't hold the expression for too long. "He's well-versed in the art," she admitted in the end, choosing to ignore the fact that the embarrassed cutie was standing right in front of me. Obviously, she knew I wouldn't relent, the smart little Ravenclaw.

"Now wait a minute," I shook my head humorously and fixed her with my you-can't-escape-this-it-is-simply-too-much-fun sort of stare. Her squint increased a little more. "That's simply not enough! Go deeper, mate. What can he _do_?"

"Well," Cas looked like she was considering shouting at me before evidently succumbing to the amusement of the situation. "Well," she started again, this time with a bit of resignation. "He can do this twisty sort of thing with his tongue -"

"_Okay!" _Kurt chimed in very loudly indeed. Both of us turned to look at him. He was burning like a hot tomato. Sebastian wasn't that far off either, which entertained me greatly. "On another note - _wi__ll _you look at the weather outside? It's simply _wonderful_, isn't it?"

"Of course it is, dear," Cas said soothingly. "Now this thing with his tongue -"

"_No,__ look!" _Kurt interrupted us again and suddenly switched to inexplicable happiness. "We've arrived!" And so, quite unfortunately, we had.

He jumped out of his seat and tugged Cas out of hers as well. "Catch you guys later!" he rushed out before quickly throwing open the door and hurrying out without a backward glance.

"Well," I blinked. Sebastian looked a bit amused. "Quite easy to tease, isn't he?"

"After you," he dramatically gestured, and I cooed at the pseudo-chivalry before stepping out as well.

Hogsmeade was already bustling with activity by the time we'd arrived - the place was unsurprisingly crawling with excited Third Years eager to experience everything they could see and equally fresh-faced upper years finally getting their chance to kick back and relax. The weather, in agreement to Kurt Donovan's flustered observations, was wonderfully warm and pleasant - probably one of the last warm days we'd have before Autumn set in, and you could already see the golden hue beginning to emerge in the village area.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Lily and Moneybag heading into the Three Broomsticks, with Potter, Remus and Pettigrew trailing in a few seconds later (Sirius was nowhere in sight and was presumably spending the day with his girlfriend Throppe). I laughed.

"So," I turned around and gave Sebastian a questioning smile. "Where to?"

The morning went by pretty well, if I may say so... except for that one horrifying moment where he'd apparently tried to direct me towards Madame Puddifoot's of all places. I'd immediately dug my heels into the ground with extreme reluctance before determinedly setting him straight right then and there - _no pink monstrosities, Mr. Grey. I'd thought you'd have had better taste! _He'd almost hugged me with relief before moving on towards The Cookery instead, thank fuck and all that it entailed.

The Cookery, which was a tiny little cafe tucked into one of the routes off the main street, was a quaint little spot that tended to serve some smashing brunches. Owned by an elderly couple going by the name of Charles and Tabitha Cooke, the place hadn't been around very long but had already begun to gain quite a bit of student popularity. (Point one for good taste.)

After a quick meal during which I learned a great deal more about the charmer that was Sebastian Grey (like how he was a half-blood born to two very business-savvy Ravenclaws, the fact that he had a little sister named Delilah who was only three and was already showing signs of powerful accidental magic, about how he was planning to attend Healing School before securing a job as a consultant at St. Mungo's, and the fact that he hated dogs with a fiery passion but completely adored his neighbor's pet daschund Wilbur - _Lee, I really should hate him but he looks like a hot dog and he has this really twitchy nose and I can't, you know?_), we headed on towards Scrivenshaft's in order to refill our supplies. It really was too bad that they didn't keep Muggle stationary as an alternative - it was so much more practical, not to mention easier to use, than quills and parchment. (I'd faced quite a bit of trouble with using a quill in the beginning but a two-week calligraphy class over the course of Christmas had nicely put an end to that particular problem.) We also made a small visit to Honeydukes where I accumulated a small mountain of life-sustaining confectionary (_uh uh, keep your itching fingers away from my Honeydukes' Finest, that is for my pleasure and my pleasure only)_ before taking the long route towards the Shrieking Shack - and let me tell you, the 'long' route was empty and _good_.

"So," he said as he casually slipped his hand into mine as we stood in front of the abandoned shack (I did not squeal but I did grin quite a bit - I mean hello, he was pulling the moves on me. Of course I was ecstatic.). "You really think this place is haunted?"

I looked at him speculatively before laughing at the irony. "Mate," I snickered and tucked back my hair absentmindedly. "We _go to school_ in the most haunted place in Britain. It's probably just a bunch of jobless morons having a really loud orgy every now and then, and finding quite a bit of amusement at our ridiculous fear."

Sebastian's ears turned a little pink at the tips, both at my unsurprising brashness and at the fact that he hadn't thought of that before (all Ravenclaws hate it when that happens). "Makes sense," he assented and brushed back his hair before tugging me into his side. "Haunted or not, I'm still not going inside though."

"What, scared?" I teased as I wrapped an arm around his waist with a satisfied sigh. "Don't worry, I can protect you, you know."

He huffed out a laugh. "It's times like these when I wonder if we've got the roles wrong. Shouldn't I be saying that to you, Montgomery?"

"I don't know, Mr. Grey," I let a smile flit across my face. "I _did _have to ask you out and all."

"Oh, yeah," he murmured and it thrilled me to see his blue eyes darken in remembrance. With a slow grin, he backed me up into a tree and locked his arms around my hips before languorously rubbing his thumbs along my waistline. I forgot how to breathe. "Never did tell you how attractive that was, did I?"

"Uh," I stumbled, my stomach turning into goo as he brought his smirking face closer to mine. "No, I don't think you di- mmf."

When I saw Cas by the bookstore about half an hour later, the shite-eating grin spread across my (thoroughly bruised) lips did nothing to hide the happiness I felt inside.

* * *

My date with Sebastian had made quite a big noise at school, strangely enough. The fact that the 'totally unattainable Sebastian Grey' had actually 'fallen into my trap of seduction' had caused some much unneeded chaos, as had the fact that our date had actually gone _well._ But that was shockingly nothing compared to the whole 'love triangle' thing that had apparently been making the circuits for the past few days - according to 'honest, trusted sources' that would prefer to 'remain unnamed', I had somehow managed to 'sink my claws' into both Sebastian _and _Sirius over the span of a _week_ and now after my date with the former, the elder Black son had apparently been left behind with a broken heart that was simply _aching_ for revenge - this led to further contemplation as to whether or not I had spiked his pumpkin juice with love potion one fine morning (I suspect the Purebloods), but that was waved away quickly enough to avoid attracting a second glance (I find that I actually have quite a good reputation amongst the student masses, much to my pleasant surprise - now that 'odd but friendly Ravenclaw' couldn't _possibly _need to go to such underhanded lengths to attract a guy. This made me feel exceedingly pleased.).

All this was, of course, wholly dismissing the fact that Sirius had a tyrant of a _girlfriend _who would sooner _eat out my insides_ than let the sexy chap slip out of her strangely talon-like fingers - and let me tell you, it was not a good thing to dismiss the Great Linda Throppe. Even Professor Dumbledore was apparently terrified of her.

I, of course, instantly made it my mission to nip that conjecture right in the bud before it managed to result in my premature death - an unnecessarily loud rant bemoaning the lack of basic intelligence in the general student population while in the range of one Vivian May (Throppe's best friend) took care of that crisis nice and quickly.

"She's going to come after me with a pitchfork," I told Sirius as I sat down next to him by one of the stained windows. A quick glimpse from the corner of my eye assured me that the blonde-haired Hufflepuff was standing right by the side with one of her faithful minions.

"Is she now? Who is this, tell me more," Sirius encouraged me as he moved his bag with his shoe to give me some butt-space.

"Why, your girlfriend, of course," I said very loudly, and was pleased to see Vivian perk up like a faithful dog. "While _you _and _I_ know that those rumors about our affair are _completely _untrue, I _am _quite afraid that they might be taken as _fact, even _though it is obvious that _Linda Throppe_ has _nothing to be insecure about_."

"Well, of course not," he agreed, puzzled. "She isn't unreasonable, you don't have to worry." Pft, and I'm a cold-blooded Nazi. Not unreasonable, my ass.

"No, she isn't," I nodded vigorously. Vivian was now scribbling on the back of her textbook. I did my very best not to laugh. "She's a _wonderful _girlfriend to you and I know she knows we're _only just friends_. You guys _look very good together."_

Sirius stared at me, now incredibly confused. "What are you doing?" he whispered, his voice thankfully low enough to escape Vivian's range.

"I'm demolishing a rumor," I hissed back very quickly. Sirius accidentally spotted Vivian up ahead and started to give me a slow smirk. "What? I don't really give a shit about all the students but mate, your girlfriend and her best friend honestly scare the fuck out of me. Shut up and let me finish," I raised my voice again. "I _really wish _people got their facts checked before passing things off as the truth. _Everybody should know _that I am, in _no_ _way_ whatsoever, aiming to damage your relationship with her. That would be _simply unthinkable._"

Sirius debated on how to reply. "I know," he agreed just as loudly. "I trust you, my _friend_. I'll make sure she knows that there is _nothing to worry about_."

Vivian nodded very firmly and went on her way once more. "Well, that's that," I concluded and stood up once again. "I'll catch you later, Sirius."

"Yes, okay," Sirius agreed, and I left him sitting there with enough amusement to last him a long time.

Sebastian, surprisingly, found quite a bit of entertainment in all the rumors, and once offhandedly told me that his friend Keith had actually been responsible for a few of the crazier ones. I didn't really mind, to be honest - I'd kind of introduced a few of my own, so I didn't really have the room to say anything.

Other than amusement, however, I didn't much care about the ridiculousness that surrounded the entire situation - the main thing was that the date had gone well and as a fortunate consequence (or was it unfortunate?), Sebastian and I were suddenly well on our way to becoming the... well, the most-caught-out couple in Hogwarts of 1976. It wasn't our fault, really. Everybody just seemed to accidentally bump into us whenever we were engaging in unseemly activities.

After that smoldering make-out we'd shared by the Shrieking Shack the other day (and isn't that ironic, wink wink), it really wasn't all that surprising to find us locked inside broom cupboards on a regular basis and snogging our bloody lungs out between short discussions about various intellectual concepts and possibilities - the quintessential Ravenclaw couple, oh happy day. We weren't all that much of an 'oh-I'm-in-love-let-us-run-off-into-the-sunset' kind of couple like Kurt and Cas or even Alice and Frank were, but we did manage to make it work - and work it did, it so fucking did.

Okay, so it _had_ been a bit awkward when that Fifth Year Hufflepuff Prefect had caught us in a broom cupboard one night after hours. (We took advantage of her shock and she let us go.)

Not to mention that time when Kurt and Cas happened to stumble upon us in an obvious search for an unoccupied spot themselves - they'd found us in various states of shameful undress while he expertly sucked on my neck and I sang to the heavens. But seriously, the embarrassment didn't really hold all that much because I generally tended to make it funny.

In a simple summarization, I was happy with the relationship.

And oh, you know, so was he.

"So have you finished McGonagall's new essay?" Sebastian gasped as I trailed my lips along his jaw, my hands bypassing his bothersome white shirt before starting to explore the wonderfully hard muscles inside.

"Mm," I groaned as I shifted my hands to stroke his shoulder blades before standing on my tippy toes and nipping playfully at his reddening ear. "Yeah, I've just got to write the conclusion - I'll probably finish it later before bed."

"Bed sounds enticing. I'm sure it's safe to assume you got the trick question?" he wrapped his fingers along my neck before bringing my lips back to his. I didn't really have the capacity to give him an affirmation considering how his tongue had wrapped around my own and was doing wonderfully arousing things to my rapidly overwhelmed nerve endings and so I just decided to grin into the kiss and take over the reins instead.

"Of course," I said a few minutes later when he broke away from my lips and began to travel down my neck - I tilted my head to give him more access. "It stands to reason that McGonagall couldn't possibly believe we'd miss it - why, it was so obvious."

"Mm, of course," he agreed as he slowly kissed a particular pressure point on my collarbone before looking up to give me a devilish grin. My breath hitched as he slowly nipped hard enough to make it bruise before gently sliding his tongue along the area in unrepentant apology. I shuddered in pleasure. "Now if you take the basic methodology into consideration, however -" he started to say but I quickly turned us around and slammed him into the door before wrapping my legs around him in abject enthusiasm. "Fmm," he added as I smashed my lips against his once more - I think he'd meant 'fuck' but what do I know?

Obviously, our relationship was going quite well.

Wouldn't you say so?

* * *

I placed the shoes onto the grass in front of me and glared at them with steely determination. It was a normal Friday afternoon about a week after Hogsmeade and I had a satisfyingly free period. This had inadvertently dragged me back to my spot under the old oak as I continued to delve deeper into my studies.

With my continued exploration into the _Imperturbable Charm_, it was slowly becoming possible to create a modified version of the formula that would ensure a sort of awkward suspended space-walk that I knew my brother would enjoy. If things went well enough with the trial pair, I would be looking into charming another as a gift for his fourteenth birthday this coming Tuesday.

Over the past week, I had looked deeper into spells like _Ascendio _and _Arresto Momentum_ that, in Arithmantic combination, would _possibly_ keep a person at least a foot above ground and this, in addition to my modified _Imperturbable_, would form an ideally sufficient formula for the desired consequence. These equations and expressions would then be tied down to a Runic array that would allow for a certain amount of magic to be - well, for the lack of a better word, _stored_, thereby making it kind of 'rechargeable' in a weird, completely non-literal way. It was still _incredibly _rough but I hoped it would work out safely enough, plus it was only just a quickly-hatched solution to an entertaining fourteenth birthday present, so... well, it wasn't really that big a deal.

If all else failed, I could always get Ben that Chaser package he'd been eyeing in Diagon Alley all throughout the bloody summer. The guy was a player for the Gryffindor team and would appreciate anything broom-related - and how was he my brother again?

On the other hand, I'd kind of expanded the product aims for my main pre-NEWT project - in addition to being rechargeable, I wanted the shoes to have an instant on/off switch capacity that could either be tied to an action or a keyword, a simple control for braking and acceleration, flexibility in movement in all possible directions, and, on the off-chance of an emergency low-charge situation, I wanted it have the option of extracting and converting energy from the wearer's basic magical core/its immediate environmental surroundings in order to support itself on its own (that last one had launched a new project on its own - how do you extract magic/convert physical energy into magic? Look into energy transformation). This, in addition to my secondary aims of it being long-lasting, weather-resistant, easily adjustable and (obviously) supportable in air made for a very ambitious project indeed, most especially because almost every basic charm used in broom design wouldn't be applicable in any case whatsoever.

_Those_ insufferable charms were woven into every single fiber of the splinters of those brooms and were especially created for on-broom flight, plus they made for very little maneuverability considering the restrictions the brooms posed on them. (Obviously broomers would disagree but come on, with my shoes it would be as easy as ice-skating and all the more unrestrained. Can you skate on a broom? Can you _dance_ on a broom? Nuh uh, I don't think so.)

Basically, I would have to look into creating a whole new system altogether, and holy shit this was going to be wonderfully interesting.

Other than my little project, however, I had slowly started to move ahead of my class schedule in Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, and was now going deeper and deeper into the technical aspects of the two studies. I was slowly starting to maintain a small collection of notebooks containing descriptions, side notes, logistics and equations on various other potential possibilities, and by the time Seventh Year started, I would seriously start looking into the possible assimilation of magic and technology. If all failed on that front, I would then consider the possibility of using Runes to _mimic_ the idea of mundane technology and technological devices - this was still a very young project and I didn't even know if it would actually _go _anywhere, much less find any positive results. Right now, my study into the realm of the _Non-being _was slowly growing in its context, with information building in on itself in a way that made Ravenclaw in me sing with utter delight. It hit a wonderful jackpot after I began to talk to the House Elves about how the school's waste itself was getting handled and disposed, and let me tell you, House Elves have an incredible insight into the workings of magic and Hogwarts itself. Consulting them about how magical disposal worked made the study exponentially interesting. And House Elf magic was another thing I had promised to look into, but now wasn't the time to do so, it was simply too huge a possibility.

I set about to carefully removing the soles of my backup trainers and was just about to make the dreaded first cut when I was rudely interrupted by a gentle cough.

"Holy fuck," I jumped and just about managed to avoid any added damage. I turned around and focused my gaze on a very contrite looking James Potter.

"Hello," he said and waved a jerky hand.

"Hi," I said, a little dazed.

"Uh," he continued, looking a bit lost for words. "I'm sorry for interrupting you," he waved a hand at my thankfully intact shoes.

"Yes, I ought to hex you for that," I agreed in bemusement. Here I was, in the presence of yet another Marauder - what was this, the Twilight Zone?

"I didn't mean to disturb you," he apologized with an endearing grimace. "It's just my mates have been raving about you for a while now and I suddenly realized that I'd never spoken to you before which was shameful considering you've been friends with them for about a month now and you've been in my year _much _longer and I was just walking around the castle to get some air when I saw you sitting here alone by the lake and I thought, _this time's as good as any_, and so decided to come and finally make an effort - I'm sorry I made you jump," he added after a breathless pause.

I put my wand down and fixed him with a narrow-eyed stare. He fidgeted adorably. "Are you nervous?" I asked him a little accusingly.

"No - well, maybe a little," he admitted lowly. His hand automatically reached up to ruffle his already messy hair and he was looking at me with an embarrassed smile - I did my best not to get up and pinch his cheeks. "It's just, you're Lily's friend and -" He trailed off and sighed. "I was a bit worried that you'd already formed a bad opinion about me, no matter what Padfoot - er, Sirius had said."

Aw.

My lips pulled up into a little grin that continued to widen when I saw him stand a little straighter in confidence. "Mate," I told him with a little laugh. "I don't judge people based on what other people say. I like to make my own observations." My smile turned a little more soothing as I gestured for him to take a seat. "What Lily might have said about you has no effect on what I think. And I don't form opinions of people unless I've actually talked to them - don't sweat it, Potter."

His eyes brightened and he relaxed completely. "Call me James," he said as he plopped down onto the grass in front of me. With an baffled look at the shoes I'd been about to work on, he looked up at me and offered me a friendly smile. This was when he asked me the dreaded question. "What are you working on?"

"Ah," I hesitated.

"It's nothing, really," I started to say, but was then struck with a _very _spontaneous reminder of his stupidly amazing flying abilities. And this was when a terribly insane idea popped into my head - this guy's input could actually help me monumentally.

I started to laugh at my utter insensibility but then unwittingly looked up to meet his quite sincere, if slightly disappointed brown eyes. And that was when the Ravenclaw in me began to take over, and the resulting process of thought had me arriving at a very unexpected, if possibly incredibly stupid fucking decision.

I quickly scanned my notebook before folding the corners of a few relevant pages, simultaneously wondering whether I had in fact lost my mind. "The dog-eared pages are the ones to read," I said as I tossed the notebook to him lightly. He demonstrated his Chaser capabilities by effortlessly snatching it out of the air. "It's for my pre-NEWT project - I'm basically working to create a set of magically enhanced flying shoes, but right now, I'm only working on a slightly different concept for my brother's birthday."

I paused as I saw him immerse himself into the conceptualization, belatedly remembering that he had in fact taken Arithmancy up until Fifth Year before dropping it after his OWLs. Arithmancy wasn't a necessary qualification to qualify as an Auror (at least, that's what I'd heard he wanted to be) and he'd already had a full schedule, but the good thing was he knew what he was reading and I, as a consequence, was happy enough to work with that.

"It's still very rough," I felt the sudden need to justify. "I'm not really expecting anything but I'm hoping for a passable result by the end of the year..." I trailed off when he looked up and stared.

"Fucking hell," he breathed after a very pregnant moment. "This is -"

"Yeah, I know," I hesitated slightly. "There's a huge probability that it'll be a complete flop, but I still wanted to try -"

"No," he interrupted, looking a bit annoyed. "This could actually _work_. I mean, like you said, it's still very rough, but this could _actually _work. Bloody Merlin," he stopped and gave me an wide-as-fuck smile. "I see why Sirius and Remus like you."

I felt the heat creeping onto my cheeks no matter how hard I tried to suppress it. "Er," I said at a complete loss for words. "They don't - uh."

"You should probably patent your ideas before someone gets their hands on this," he said, waving the notebook significantly.

"And if you incorporate Greek Runology into it while taking the Greek God Zeus into special consideration, you might find the results a bit smoother than Elder Futhark," he continued after a small pause, further demonstrating some basic intelligence in Runes as well.

"...It was kind of Gryffindorish of you, though, wasn't it?" he grinned slightly as I continued to stare. "To show your work to a complete stranger. You can trust me to be silent, though," he added as an afterthought.

And that's what made the final decision for me.

I closed my eyes as I fully discarded the remnants of my already questionable sanity. "Potter - er, James," I said hesitantly while simultaneously thinking_, holy fuck what the fuck was I doing oh my god_. "Considering how you're already a brilliant flyer - oh, stop preening, you inexplicable bobblehead, I'm only stating basic fact..." I contemplated for another minute before picking up my courage again. "Well, I was wondering if -" I couldn't help but pause one more time. Last chance, Lee, do you really want to do this?

"If what?" he asked me slightly impatiently.

"Well, er," I bit my lip and frowned in indecision. "I was wondering if you would consider being my test-flyer and consultant for my NEWT research, actually..."

He looked up from the notebook and stared at me, his mouth a tiny 'o'.

"Only if you have the time, of course," I told him convincingly, but the question of who I was trying to convince continued to be a mystery. "I'm not coercing you in any way whatsoever, this is purely your choice. And you only have to try them out once in a while."

He didn't say anything.

"I'm willing to owe you for any possible injury," I added after a silent moment, slowly falling into that mixture of dread and dismay when he still continued to stay silent. "You know? It's alright, you don't have to do it if you don't want to - forget I said anything, actually -"

"Are you serious?" he blurted suddenly. I stopped talking and lifted a slightly offended eyebrow. "Oh, of _course _I'll do it! This is _awesome_, plus I get to use _flying shoes_ \- you seriously _want _me to do it?"_  
_

"Well, of course," I replied unsurely. "You know how to handle yourself in the air _and _you know your basic Arithmancy. You're the perfect person for the job. You're also accustomed to injury, which is even better, not to mention you think of things I admittedly don't... the patenting thing, to establish my point - why wouldn't I want you to do it?"

"Er," he looked at me incredulously. "This is kind of the first time we've ever talked -"

"Posh," I said with a dismissive wave, even though I'd been cursing myself for the very same reason a couple of seconds ago. "Sirius _has_ talked a lot about you and you seem like a really decent person. The main thing's the flying part anyway and I've already observed your undeniable ability," I shrugged. "The decent part is just an added bonus. So I take it we have an agreement?"

"Most definitely," he said and hugged me in his childish excitement. "I get to try _flying shoes, _Montgomery, I love you."

"Call me Lee," I said with a delighted laugh. "We're partners now, you might as well get used to my agonizing presence."

"Hey," James pulled back to shoot me a curious smile. "Does Sirius know about this? Or Remus?"

"Hm?" I unconsciously frowned. "No, actually. I don't believe it ever came up." And that was incredibly weird considering how Remus was in my _Arithmancy _class - now this was a teensy little problem.

"- I take it you don't want me to say anything to them then?" James was clarifying, looking a bit disappointed.

"Er," I grinned a bit sheepishly. "I would prefer to tell them about it in my own time, yes. I don't mind you just telling them about the partnership, though. Remus knows about the pre-NEWT projects. He just doesn't know what I'm doing."

I paused for a slight moment. "Er, should I be giving you anything in return for your services? It does seem a bit unfair, now that I think of it -"

"Please," James scoffed, his brown eyes alight with excitement. "They're _flying shoes_. I don't need anything else in return."

* * *

"The _fuck_?" Cas exclaimed as she put down her book with a purposeful thud. Emmeline, Lacy and Joan looked up at us in varying stages of surprise and amusement before going back to their conversation after I shot them an apologetic grimace. "How did that happen again?"

"Well, he's an experienced flyer _and _he can give me much-needed input about the product," I said as I hurriedly motioned for her to bring her volume down. "_Plus, _he's insightful and quick. I don't see how this can be detrimental in any way."

"No, of _course_ not, it's only almost two months of your bloody work - no, you've been planning for longer," Cas said with a shocked tug at her hair. I felt a spark of annoyance at her tone but understood her trepidation nonetheless - my doodles, no matter how haphazard, _did_ have a lot of potential, if nothing else. "It's just... a pretty big surprise - I didn't know you had spoken to him as well -"

"I haven't," I agreed with nonchalance. "This was my first conversation with him."

Cas stared at me, her movements stiff. "Lee, you're sure about this -"

"Yes," I nodded before picking up my notebook again. "I trust my judgement, Cas. And you know he's a good guy."

Cas sat up in her bed and faced me, her blonde hair a slight mess. Her eyes met mine before relaxing completely, a sign of her compliance to my decision. "It's your research. And if you trust him, I'm fine. Just," she hesitated. "Be careful, okay? This is the beginning of your _career_."

I bit my lip in consideration before steeling myself with a steady exhale. "I will, I promise," I said as I focused on my notebook, the nuances of the _Anapneo _charm encompassing me once more.

"Who all are you going to let in?" Cas asked me after a while.

I paused and considered. "Only you, Lily and now James know about my actual research - James purely because I _need _a flyer with prior experience." I trailed off for a moment. "I'll bring Alice and Marlene in too, I trust them."

"Are you considering Black and Lupin?" Cas asked as she pulled her hair up into a messy ponytail.

"Uh," I hesitated. "I don't know. I do trust them, but I really don't think so..."

"Don't hurry it," Cas advised me lowly. "Don't tell them if you don't want to. It's fine."

"I know," I said, somewhat frustrated. "But I don't feel comfortable hiding it from my friends is all..."

Cas looked at me in contemplation. "Take your time," she told me as she turned back towards her book. _Pride and Prejudice_, I read on the cover. "Don't rush it."

I looked back at my notebook and felt the conflict rising inside me. One one hand, it was about trust and on the other, I actually _was _quite proud of what I was starting_. _Taking that into consideration along with the fact that I was nothing short of a _Mudblood_ and therefore hardly significant in society's eyes, I knew that if even a _half-blood _got a hold of my bloody notebooks, _everything_ would fall into that person's hands. I would be in every danger of losing my credit with no way of protesting otherwise. And even then, without any backing, I would have a hard time accomplishing _anything - _goddamn backassward Wizarding World and their discrimination towards non-Purebloods.

"You know, though?" Cas piped up after a few minutes. "Lily's not going to be happy about this." I immediately thought, 'oh, fuck' and looked up to meet her amused gaze.

I hadn't factored Lily in at all. She wasn't going to be pleased about James, no. Rather, I could actually see this going quite badly, especially considering how utterly _obstinate_ she was. Curse Gryffindors and their inexplicable stubbornness. Why couldn't they just make out and be happy?

And yet... this was between James and me. This was _my _project. _My _choice. Her prejudices - and that was exactly what they were, for James wasn't half as bad as she had portrayed him to be - did not and wouldn't ever affect my personal decisions.

"It doesn't matter," I said, and the words tasted bittersweet. "It doesn't affect anything."

"I know," Cas said, and I felt a bit happier to hear the understanding in her voice. "She'll come around. Don't worry too much."

Don't worry too much.

I had a strong feeling that was going to become my personal fucking mantra.

* * *

**A/N:**

Hello.

Okay, so I'm probably getting really enthusiastic about this notebook thing but I think this story's probably going to become an outlet for all my theories. I'm really sorry if people thought it was just going to be a kiss-and-be-happy sorta thing with Sirius and Lee but I don't really think it's going to happen that way.

After some careful consideration, I have decided that while Sirius will be involved heavily with the building of this story, his romance with Lee isn't going to come quickly. I want it to build and I don't see them just up and falling in love just yet, sorry.

Lee's going to be more than Sirius's love interest, though. She has another role to play.

On a side note, I loved the previous chapter reviews, and I'm really happy to welcome the new favorite-rs, readers and followers - I think part of the reason why I'm so enthusiastic about this one is because the beginning response is actually really quite encouraging.

This was probably not the direction anybody saw it taking. I really hope that it turns out well, though.

Please tell me what you think!

Love,

R.


	7. Chapter 7

I opened my eyes the next morning to a surge of hot water in the face and a strange, unwanted feeling of what you could call 'foreboding', and the first thing that popped into my head was a very vehement, very appropriate, rather resounding little '_fuck me, I'm going to die'._

Not how I wanted to start out that particular day, to be very honest.

With a ridiculously exaggerated sigh, I tumbled out of bed and walked an unsteady path toward the dorm's bathroom, barely managing to dodge a damp, bemused Emmeline on the way. Today was a Saturday, I remembered as I made quick work of my early morning wake-up process, my mind unfortunately functioning with an inconvenient ten-second lag. I wouldn't be able to use classes as an excuse to avoid that inevitable conversation with Lily Evans.

_Fuck me,_ my brain squalled.

"Oh, piss off," I pointlessly scowled.

There weren't all that many people inside the Common Room when Cas and I made our way down about half an hour later—it was ten 'o' clock in the morning on what might possibly be one of the season's last warm days, and so people were busy making the most of the sunshiny weather lounging around by the lake outside.

I felt an inexplicable burst of jealousy. The little nincompoops. _T__hey _didn't have to worry about silly confrontations with soon-to-be-raging redheads. _They _didn't have to worry about being sytematically taken apart and then forevermore confined to Myrtle's bathroom by the time the sun went down.

_Now, Lee_, I said to myself._ Let's not take it too far._

Cas, the darling little godsend, didn't bring up any part of last night's rather dramatic exchange of words, choosing instead to blather on about all sorts of inane shit and nonsense from innocuous looking bumps in walls to Throppe and her various magnanimous faults and inabilities. I, for one, found this incredibly calming, for some unexplained reason that I didn't really want to overanalyze for fear of exactly what it may reveal of my questionable character.

There was a flash of red by the corner. I swore and made an about turn, then inwardly slapped myself and made an about turn once again.

"Lee?" Cas asked me concernedly. "Are you—"

"Simply marvelous," I said, slapping on a merry little grin. "Just a bit nervous is all. I mean, I still stand by what I said last night about this being between me and Potter and all, but she's still one of my best friends, you know, and I really don't want to hurt her even a little bit—"

"Lee Montgomery," Cas interrupted me a little amusedly. "Everything's going to be _fine._ Now shut up and march your little ass into that Hall. Today's a Saturday, and that means—"

Now, how did I not remember—

"Oatmeal!" I blurted, worried thoughts forgotten. "Of course!"

"Hey!" Cas cried in indignation. "Wait up for me!"

"God, you lethargic git." I rolled my eyes but decided to slow down a little anyway.

The Great Hall was all sunshiny and amazing that morning, a stunning reflection of the wonderful weather that was waiting for us outside. A quick survey of the sunlit room told me that neither my brother nor the Marauders were anywhere to be seen; the former due to his inexcusably ritualistic tendency for crack-of-dawn-self-activation (I mean _really_), and the latter presumably because it was a Saturday and they'd all made the unanimous decision to sleep in, the obnoxious cads. I chortled at the hypocrisy and made an absent note to pester James into a little test run for Ben's present the next morning—hopefully I would be done with all the preliminary inscriptions and enchantments by then.

We chose to sit at the Gryffindor table for a change this time, squeezing our way into the space between Marlene and some irritating Fourth Year with bits of bacon hanging out of her mouth—very attractive, I'm in _love, _oh yes—with a few acknowledgements thrown around at various random people who'd waved and said good morning. "Lily, Alice, Marlene," I greeted, quickly garnering an entire pot of oatmeal for my sole consumption and making sure I looked merry as fuck. "And how are you this fine morning?"

"Cas, Lee," Marlene snorted, waving a syrupy fork in salutation and almost poking me in the eye, the incorrigible ass. "We're spiffy, thanks for asking. And yourself?"

I gave her a cheerful grin. "Why, simply cracking. Pass the strawberries, would you?" God, Lee. Tone it down.

"Coffee," said Cas, and a steaming little pot of black shit was placed in front of her, courtesy an amused Lily. "My appreciation," she added, and was awarded a tip of the head in even more amused acknowledgement.

"So," Alice asked, a smile playing on her lips at the familiar byplay. I began picking various items off the table and dumping them into my oatmeal, expertly preparing my seductive concoction. "What are your plans for today?"

"Oh, I don't know," Cas said in between sips of sludge, sounding a little odd. I looked up. "Homework, probably,"

There was a beat of silence.

"What was that?" I narrowed my eyes in scrutiny.

"What?" Cas looked defensive.

"You emphasized 'homework'," I said to her, now even more suspicious.

Cas picked up her mug and took a ridiculously long sip. "No, I didn't, don't be silly."

I gave her a look and then put my spoon down. "Yes, you did."

Cas didn't move the mug away from her mouth. "No, I didn't."

I felt the realization creep onto me like tendrils of chocolaty-warmth. "Yes, you did."

Cas steadfastly avoided my omniscient gaze. "NoIdidn't."

"_Homework_," I paused superiorly. "Is code for 'hot snog with hot Seventh Year', isn't it?"

"_Homework_," Cas's eyes widened. "Is code for _homework_, Merlin be damned."

"For shame, lying in front of the Gryffindor _prefect_, you horny little chit." I gave her a humorous look as Lily, Alice and Marlene made no attempts to muffle their laughter. "_Homework, _is obviously a dirty sham."

"_Homework_," Cas stressed, now looking slightly panicky. "Is a sacred, longstanding, treasured tradition extolled by every single Ravenclaw that has walked and will continue to walk these hallowed walls, and you ought to be absolutely _ashamed _of your casual desecration of the same, you blasphemous _twit_."

"_Homework_," I began to retaliate but then stopped, my mouth an expressive 'o'. Well, I'll be damned. "Now wait just one little moment—Cas Meadowes. Are you _Ravenclawing?"_

"What?" Cas stopped, looking a bit out-of-sorts with the abrupt change in pattern. "No, I'm not."

"You _are_." I raised a hand to stifle a laugh. "Fuck, that's simply _priceless_."

"I'm not!" Cas emphasized, but was drowned out with Marlene's rather resonant "What do you mean, _'Ravenclawing'?" _and the spectators' resulting chimes of agreement, good Merlin, these rowdy Gryffindor folk.

"It's this thing I use to explain weird, characteristically Ravenclaw behavior," I ruthlessly confined my giggles to my tummy, which in all honesty was one of the most monumental tasks I'd ever undertaken in my entire _life_, no hyperbole. I gave Cas a sly look. "Like when you feel ashamed because you're not studying as much as you ought to, courtesy a guilt complex stemming from a peculiar case of excessive snogging."

"Would you quit _diagnosing _me?" Cas squinted indignantly as our three friends and the eavesdropping students began to descend into fits of laughter. "Lee Montgomery, I am not_ Ravenclawing_."

I felt my lips pull into a ridiculously large grin, despite my utmost efforts to continue looking unfazed—well, fuck, I was hoping I wouldn't crack so soon. "Yes, you are," I paused, pointing deliberately. "You, Dorcas Meadowes, are going to get all hot and bothered within moments of that scrumptious Seventh Year's simply _steaming _presence, and your texts are going to lie forgotten by the side in favor of more _interesting _explorations by the time the minute hand's moved ten places, and you're feeling guilty because you know it's true." I sat back, absurdly satisfied.

Cas's squint deepened. I gave her an unrelenting smile. "You know she's right," Marlene sniggered, ever the authority. The blonde, in turn, sputtered a few choice adjectives in reply.

"It's okay to snog your boyfriend, you git," I informed her, very entertained. "You don't have to lie about it, not to us."

"But... I really want to do my homework," Cas sighed, looking a tiny bit helpless.

"Well, there's your answer, innit?" I gave her a wicked grin, pouring everything into making it sound utterly, unquestionably obvious. "You probably ought not to do it with your boyfriend."

Cas threw her omelet at me. It slapped against my face, sliding down at a snail's pace and then falling into my lap with an anticlimactic _shlop_. There was a moment of respectful silence.

And then everybody collapsed into hysterical laughter.

* * *

"So," I said awhile later. We were mostly done with our meals and were just sitting around trying our best to convince ourselves that we had ample time to waste (it was a _Saturday! _The weather was _wonderful!)._ Alice was eating just so that she had an excuse not to get up and get to work and we were appreciating her every effort to give us excuses to not do so too, the self-sacrificing little glutton that we irrevocably loved. I then made a very spontaneous decision, absently noting the fact that I seemed to be making loads of those lately—what happened to Ravenclaw think-it-throughs? "So," I repeated.

I did a quick look-around, thankful for the small ring of space that separated our group on both sides—that annoying Fourth Year and her equally misfortunate friends had disappeared some time ago, thank fuck and all that. Without missing a beat, I pulled my wand out of my sleeve and cast a quiet _Muffliato, _giving my suddenly very curious friends a serious look that only made them even more curious.

A small clot of tension formed within the pit of my stomach. I wondered at the smartness of my decision but then figured it was probably smart enough to just get it done and over with, because I knew it would otherwise continue to bother me for the rest of the day. And I didn't have the energy to obsess over anything, to be very honest.

"Alice, Marlene," I began, pulling a small pile of notebooks out of my bag and placing it on the table with a resounding thud. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Lily's eyes gleaming with intelligent curiosity, absently recalling that the last time she'd gotten a glimpse was a little over a week ago, and there sure was a lot more to go around now. "I haven't been all that straight with you—"

"The notebooks!" Alice squeaked, and Marlene snatched one off the table in one smooth move. Lily didn't say a single word as she pulled a few towards herself and then sank into the scribblings with enviable ease. Five seconds later, none of them looked to be surfacing anytime soon, flipping through the pages like they would combust or something should they miss even a single detail. I just stared.

"What?" Alice looked up to give me a fleeting look, snorting when she noticed the flabbergasted expression on my face like I had no reason to feel flabbergasted at all. "It's not like it's some terrible secret to the people that know you. You only walk around with them clutched between your fingers every second of every day."

"I do _not,_" I cried, marginally offended.

"You do _too,"_ Marlene responded, looking unimpressed. "You're planning on becoming an Experimentalist. You walk around with notebooks in your hand. It's an easy enough conclusion to draw. Now," she paused to take a bite of her ham and egg sandwich while I continued to give her a bewildered stare. "We're not all that pleased that you're only showing these to us just _now_, but we can understand, especially considering the fact that we don't even take Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, and you have reason to keep things a secret, in lieu of your blood status. It's okay, we forgive you." Her brows furrowed as they formed into a tiny frown. "Do trust us sooner, if you will. But this," she continued; now looking rather admiring. Alice nodded vigorously. "This is impressive, indeed."

"Er," I replied. A strange heat building within the flesh of my cheeks had me belatedly realizing that I was in fact _blushing_. I'd obviously blown this whole thing a little out of proportion.

"Er," I said again. Now, come on. The least I could do was be a little eloquent.

"What is it?" Alice asked, looking genuinely curious. "Are you surprised we noticed? I mean, you are one of our closest friends, aren't you?"

She sounded a little uncertain. I suddenly began to feel very guilty for the way I'd treated them. "Yeah, that's not it at all. I just expected you to be a bit madder, is all."

Marlene rolled her eyes. "Don't be silly," she said with a wave of her hand. "It's something to be quiet about, we understand." I felt a rush of affection for the two Gryffindors.

A few seconds passed. I then remembered that other thing I'd been meaning to enlighten them about and subsequently figured, might as well, now that we were properly in the swing of things.

"Er, also," I paused. Cas on my left began to snicker, making me twist my head to give her an irritated glare.

"What?" Lily asked, looking curious.

"Well, there's one more thing…"

Marlene's brows furrowed. "Well, don't trail around. What is it?"

Go on Lee, you can be brave. I lifted my eyes to look straight into Lily's pretty green hues, a weird mixture of caution, regret, stubbornness and determination forming within my peculiarly churning insides. "So hey, Lily, don't be mad, okay…"

Lily now looked very confused indeed. "What _is_ it, Lee?"

"Well," I stopped and decided to just spit it out, Merlin be damned, I was gone already. "I've kind of… bullied Potter into agreeing to be my test flyer for my pre-NEWT project. He and I are now, for the lack of a better word, partners in this particular venture of mine."

Lily froze. There was a bout of total silence.

I hurriedly collected every pointy object in the redhead's vicinity and placed them far, far away from her violent, impeccable talons.

After ten seconds passed, I decided to be even braver. "Are you mad?"

Cas, Alice and Marlene began to laugh.

"Er, Lils?" I said awkwardly and then tossed a bit of bacon at her face, Merlin be even _more _damned, it's not like she could get any madder. "Can you… say something?"

Lily's green eyes began to narrow. "James Potter?" she asked in clarification, and her lips pressed into a scowl when I gave her a small but steady nod.

"Why?"

I paused. Now I didn't quite expect this to be a rational discussion—more of her screaming and me dodging, to be very honest. I heaved a very subtle sigh of relief, wondering why I'd expected anything else from my intelligent friend in the first place. "Well, he's a brilliant flyer and a Quidditch player, which means he's used to getting hurt... He demonstrated basic knowledge in Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, which means he's going to at least vaguely understand what I'm on about... He's genuinely enthusiastic about the idea, especially considering he's going to be the first one to try them out... And I _can _trust him to keep quiet _despite _how little I know him. All in all, I figured it was a smart decision to reel him in."

There was a pregnant silence as all of us regarded Lily with cautious eyes, waiting for a probable explosion despite her deceiving calm. I belatedly registered Cas wrapping her thin, long fingers around my own and felt thankful for the comfort she offered. "Lily?"

"Well, what do you want me to say?" Lily sighed, looking a teensy bit conflicted. A hand rose to brush a few red strands out of her eyes as she continued to mull over the situation inside her mind, a lot more accommodating to the idea that I could have ever hoped for, fuck yes, I was amazing at this shit. "I'm not exactly happy about it all, but I don't really have any say, do I? It's not like it's going to affect me any, and it _is _your project." There was a small pause. She bit her lip. "Just keep him away from me, will you?"

Lily, you awesome, sensible, obstinate chit.

"God, I expected you to explode," I gasped, thumping my head onto the table with inexplicable relief.

"You caught me in a good mood," Lily said, her lips quirking up into a ridiculously pretty smile as the rest of them collapsed back into their heavy laughter. Potter, the sorry bloke, he was so screwed if he ended up with her—I mean, even _I_ was swooning and I was completely straight. "I don't know what I would've said if you'd put this on me after an argument with Potter, that's for sure."

"I'd probably be running around without a head, considering the possibilities," I mumbled, raising a hand to comb back my cumbersome hair.

"Nah, I like you, you snot," Lily grinned, still looking a bit bemused. "Now give me my cutlery, I'm not going to scoop out your innards. Besides," she added, looking bewilderingly satisfied. "It's not like I care, you're going to suffer enough in Potter's presence."

"Fuck you," I snorted, tossing back all the silverware. "Just you wait, I'm going to get you two together if it's the last thing I do."

"Not without a bloody love potion, you won't," Lily tossed back her shiny red hair, looking a little constipated. "I wouldn't touch Potter with a pole as long as the radius of the planet, even if it was to impale him to death a hundred times over and _then _some, the arrogant prat."

"So harsh," a deep voice said, and all of us turned to our left to see all of the Marauders standing there, James Potter looking appropriately sickened. Apparently, the _Muffliato _had worn off some time ago. I didn't worry about it all too much, we'd said all the important stuff quite a while back. "But out of curiosity, do you talk about me all the time, Evans?"

"Potter, fuck off," Lily sighed, looking disproportionately exasperated. Marlene grinned and tipped her head. "Captain." (Right, she was the Keeper of their Quidditch team.)

"Sirius, Remus, James, Pettigrew," I greeted them with a merry grin and was rewarded with four returning smiles, though one of them was very curious and one a questionable grimace—with a slight jerk of realization, I surmised that James must have already informed them about our new arrangement and, if Remus and Sirius's expressions were anything to go by (well, Sirius, mostly. Remus was blessed with common sense.), I had a bit of explaining to do. Now isn't that simply spectacular?

As I slowly analyzed Sirius's closed expression, taking in his ruffled brows, bulging, clenched jaw and strangely twisted lips, my mouth fell into an 'o' of slight incredulity. He was actually mad about this. He was mad that I hadn't told him anything before and before James. He was mad that I hadn't trusted him with one of my most important private affairs. I'd expected him to be inquiring, like Remus was, but I hadn't expected him to be mad.

Holy mother of Merlin, he was actually, honest-to-God, _mad_.

I felt a surge of self-righteousness flood into my tummy. I had no reason to justify myself to people I'd only _just_ come to know. With a quick, tension-relieving exhale, I pushed away my ire and looked at them with glinting eyes. "Join us for breakfast?"

But then again, I'd forgotten about the other people sitting around me. "No," said Lily, sounding firm.

"We've got to get going, sorry," Cas said, looking a bit apologetic. "We're headed to the Library for an quick study session."

This was the first mention of one but I didn't miss a beat, knowing this was just Cas's way of giving Lily an easy out. "Right, of course, I'm quick to forget," I said smoothly, inwardly figuring that that particular conversation could wait, or I'd probably start ripping heads off by the time the clock struck twelve.

"Shall we, then?" Alice asked, pushing back her empty plate. I hurriedly shoved my notebooks into my bag and snatched a few bits of toast to munch on along the way.

"See you guys," I said as we passed them all, giving Remus and Sirius a mocking little wave. Remus smiled, Sirius did not. I sighed, and as we walked away, I turned around to give him a meaningful glare, my icy hues colliding with a pair of strong, upset greys. _Kitchens after dinner_, I silently enunciated. He nodded in return. With a quick motion towards a questionably tired-looking Remus, I made sure he understood. His eyebrows drew into a surprising frown but he nodded once again. _I'll bring him along_.

I turned around once again, quickly catching up with the rest of the girls as they exited through the large wooden doors. That conversation was bound to be fun.

God, I was having way too many important conversations today. I mean honestly, I really did deserve a little break.

Imagine, a nice little book out in the rare October sunshine.

I held in a longing sigh and trudged on to the Library, a pair of nondescript canvas shoes safe in the bottom of my bag, intent on finishing the inscriptions by the time supper came by.

* * *

I took another bite of my delicious little coffee crumble and moaned.

"Now that's what I like to call a warm _welcome, _wouldn't you say, Moony?" A smooth baritone wisecracked from somewhere up front and center, making me snap out of my food-related doozy to blink at the mildly distinguishable lumps that had popped into existence by the kitchen doors.

"Remus," I said in acknowledgement of the exasperatedly amused Gryffindor on the left. "Fucker," I nodded at the idiotic ignoramus standing by his side.

"Highly undeserved," said Sirius with a small scowl. I did not give a shit and a half.

"Hello, Lee," Remus said in return, giving me a handsome smile. I gave him a wiggle of my eyebrows and he raised a hand to withhold a ridiculously cute snort, the smart little Gryffindor. With a quick nod, I shifted my eyes to give Sirius an unimpressed smile.

"Sit down, don't be shy." I pointed at the two chairs I'd strategically placed across the table in front of me. "Do not speak," I further emphasized when he opened his mouth to do just the same.

A few seconds passed. They didn't say a word as they slipped into the seats set out for them. Sirius looked a little taken aback, like this hadn't exactly been the way he'd imagined this conversation would go.

I wasn't going to go easy on him one bit.

Remus, with his worn, slightly wrinkled amber eyes and his casually combed hair, was trying very hard to hide an entertained smile. I wanted to squeal a little because he looked shitloads adorable as he continued to do so, but I was on a mission here and squealing would probably go against the image I was meaning to consciously project.

"Now," I said, giving Sirius a cold as fuck grin, inwardly wondering exactly why I was saying something like this so bloody early in our friendship. I mean honestly, it was barely November. "You have problems with me."

Sirius waited two seconds and then understood that he was actually allowed to speak this time. His gorgeous grey eyes glinted. "Actually, yeah, I do—"

"Uh, uh," I interrupted him, picking up my spoon to scoop another bit of bliss into my mouth. "So good," I sighed, licking my lips and then unleashing one of my most ferocious glares on the misfortunate asshole in front of me. "Now. Sirius Black."

Remus began to snicker. I took a deep breath.

"Let me be very honest with you." A purposeful pause. "Now _d__espite _the fact that I trust you and value your opinions and all that important stuff, you need to get it into your head that I've still known you for all of _two months_ and honestly, you cannot quite go around expecting me to up and tell you every single thing I do and plan to do, much less try to dictate who I can tell _how _much about _anything_ in this world whatsoever. _Furthermore_," I narrowed my eyes at the buffoon who was beginning to look a little embarrassed at the verbal dressing down, and Remus, who was now trying his level best to muffle his hiccup of laughter. "I'm not some random blonde bimbo who's going to deteriorate into a never-ending river of big, snotty tears the second you shoot me a dangerous-looking glare, and I would like to make it clear that you _cannot_ rightfully try to bash me around because I've apparently trusted your mate with something I should have presumably trusted you with first, and if you ever actually try to do so ever again, I will make sure that you find yourself suspended from the tip of the goddamn Astronomy Tower in nothing but your goddamn naked suit and your little ones cut off with a rusty knife and stuffed through your goddamn throat like a goddamn Pumpkin Pasty, do you understand me?"

Silence.

Sirius tugged at his collar, looking terribly uncomfortable. Remus, the poor sod, was a bewildering mixture of agonized empathy and cruel amusement, and had subsequently fallen into a fit of stilted laughter that looked a hundred thousand times more uncomfortable than getting hit by any Tickling Jinx.

"Well?" I prodded him, and Sirius nodded his head, his forehead smoothening. "I was an idiot. Fair enough."

"This morning, you were a bullheaded moron," I corrected blithely. "I'm not going to have anybody just going around shooting me the evil eyes for something I don't deserve. Now Remus," I said, shifting my gaze to lock eyes with the now smirking Gryffindor—my, my, he was a stone cold Marauder, wasn't he? "I love you, and you have common sense, so you get to read the notebook first." I tossed him the little black book containing all my notes for the pre-NEWT project, giggling when he snatched it out of the air as quick as a hawk. "Sirius may have it after you're done."

"Sirius," I said, and then grinned when he shot me a repentant smile. "Some crumble?"

He picked up the spoon that had been conveniently magicked into existence by one of the gushing House Elves all around us. "Don't mind if I do." He paused and then added, "You terrifying minx."

I waved away the compliment but couldn't stop a smile from forming anyway.

* * *

It was safe to say that James Potter was an incorrigible ass.

And even worse, the bespectacled moron didn't give so much as a flying fuck as he continued to fall about in a fit of deep, resounding laughter, happily bouncing around in my stupid motherfucking spacewalking shoes like the ridiculous little degenerate he was.

"Potter, you fuckface," I swore, my notes going haywire as I raced to catch up with the prancing dolt. An accidental glance at the distance in front of him had me almost slipping on a wayward root as I tried to warn him with a panicked wave. "WATCH OUT FOR THAT TREE!"

He shifted his gaze to shoot me a look of bemusement and the momentary lapse in attention saw him bouncing headfirst into an old oak and then falling straight onto the cold, hard ground. "MOTHERFUCKING OW!"

"POTTER!" I doubled my pace and almost fell onto the grass next to him in my alarm, my hands slipping under his torso to roll him onto his back. He raised his head with a long groan and then spewed a shitload of salivated foliage right out of his pretty little mouth. "James, are you okay?"

"In need of a little mothering, I suppose, but relatively uninjured," he grumbled, raising a muddy hand to adjust the spectacles on his nose. A second passed before he realized that the rectangles encased within his simple metal frames were in fact terribly, incredibly splintered. The hand pressed against his face in tired lament.

"I told you to watch out for the tree," I scolded him as I pulled his head into my lap and then tapped his spectacles with my wand, smoothly dismissing his bewildered stare. "_Oculus reparo_."

"Now let's see," I furrowed my brows and then began poking around his messy black hair, absentmindedly swooning over its soft and fluffy feel. "You got any bumps?"

"What? No," he said, and then winced very hard. "Ow!"

"Okay, you've got a bump." I nodded firmly and then healed it like a pro. "Now, do you have a concussion?"

"What? No," he repeated, and then smiled with relief when he saw the red glow around his thankfully non-concussed head, courtesy my speedy little detection spell. "Okay, you don't have a concussion. Now," I rapped his forehead hard and relished in his resulting flinch. "What in Merlin's goddamn name possessed you to escape the bloody perimeter, you incomprehensibly dim jackass? You could've gotten seriously hurt! You _did_ almost get seriously hurt!"

"Hey, calm down," he soothed, reaching up to give me a little wham on the side of my head, making my eyes narrow down at him into a very intimidating glare. "I'm sorry, I'm fine. I was just having a bit of fun, is all. You see," he smiled winningly. "It's your awesome motherfucking spacewalking shoes. Your brother's going to _adore_ them."

I did my level best to maintain my glare, but in the face of his very convincing, very adorable little puppy dog eyes, I could practically feel the ire melting off my face. James obviously noticed, his smile becoming a little arrogant. I shoved his head off my lap in retaliation.

Immediate worries aside, my eyes went to the muddy canvases he was wearing like a strange kind of gravity. "I need to fiddle with its inertia mechanism and then do something about its obviously faulty system of brakes," I observed, throwing my body back into the grass with a tired sigh. "You're okay, right, James?"

The Gryffindor wriggled around like a possessed centipede until he was lying right next to me, his head still covered in a whole lot of grassy mud and microorganisms. As I turned my head to regard him with concerned eyes, I couldn't help but wonder exactly what it was about the guy that made me so comfortable with him so easily. Why, I was almost treating him the same as I would little Benny, and I'd barely known him two days.

"I'm fine, don't worry," he said, looking unworried. "Take a break, would you? The shoes are coming along amazingly."

It was about six thirty in the evening, a little over a day before my brother's birthday. I'd sent him a quick owl the previous evening in casual inquiry of his plans and he'd replied with a strong, reverberating positive, and so at nine 'o' clock in the morning that following Sunday, a very excited James had led me to a little clearing just within the edge of the forest, away from prying eyes, that was simply perfect for our future tests and procedures. We'd been there for about six and a half hours, excluding lunch and a nice little visit from Cas, Remus and Sirius.

(I felt very happy indeed to see them interacting. I didn't quite want to leave Cas out as I began to connect with this strange collection of nice, new friends.)

"A break sounds nice," I said with another sigh. "I'm not working you too hard, am I?"

"Nah," he said, doing his level best to muffle his little snicker at my obvious innuendo. "I told you, no one in their right mind would ever complain about an opportunity like this."

"Yeah, yeah," I waved a dismissive hand. It almost hit him in the face. "I really hope I don't end up killing you, though."

"My mum always told me I've got a ridiculously thick head," he gave me an impish grin. "It's going to take a lot harder than a shoddy faceplant to give me a lasting injury, much less death."

"It was a little more than a faceplant." My lips turned despite my concern.

"Hardly," he pooh-poohed, pasting on a look of modesty, the great berk. The look I shot him was very communicative of how full of shit he was.

The silence stretched on for a few comfortable moments. Dim strings of light threaded through the leaves of the tree standing above us like wafts in a weave, swirling, intertwining, colliding, inexplicably tangible, immensely beautiful. It was close to sunset, and the mix of pinks, purples, oranges and yellows were a breathtaking backdrop, an awe-striking canvas of billowing twists and turns.

I imagined that was what magic would look like in its rawest, basest, most organic form, if it were visible to us all. Like auras and ley lines and varying concentrations of an infinite explosion of colors that we'd probably never even seen before, god, I only _wish_.

I emitted a little sigh.

"So think about it," James said suddenly, making me turn my head to look at him in mild surprise, only to find him looking back at me with a very playful grin. "Up in the castle, right now, is a population of over a thousand incredibly curious, incredibly superficial teenagers that live confined within a bunch of stone walls and have nothing better to do with their lives than talk about _other_ people's lives, god forbid they actually do anything productive, like Quidditch." A deliberate pause. (I try not to roll my eyes.) "I'm sure there are about a hundred thousand rumors floating around about the two of us in the castle by now, what do you say?"

"Merlin, don't say that," I slapped his stomach with an exaggerated groan, inwardly wincing when my hand came into contact with rock-solid abdominal muscle—fuck me, Lily, do you even realize what you're missing? "With everything that's happening, I'm probably going to be branded the school's biggest slut by the time term closes."

"It's very possible," James said cheerfully. "There are a lot of jealous girls out there, simply aching for some of _this_." This particular sentence was accompanied with a ridiculously exaggerated gesture that obviously alluded to the masterpiece that was his awe-inspiring body. My lips lifted to form a nefarious grin as I thought of the epic clincher.

"But not the one you really want, though."

He returned the slap to my tummy, making me twitch. I rewarded him with a kick in the gut.

Silence.

"I really hope Benny likes the shoes," I finally sighed, very nervous indeed. James blessed me with a roll of his eyes.

"He's going to love it," he assured me, and I belatedly realized that as the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team and a Chaser to boot, he was bound to be at least on amicable terms with my little brother, fellow Chaser that he was. "Don't you worry about it, you idiot Ravenclaw."

* * *

**A/N:**

Okay, don't kill me.

I really am sorry that I haven't updated in a while, but I _will_ say that it was only a very tedious combination of an unrelenting college schedule, an undertaking of various other side projects and a whole lot of exasperating writer's block that made me cease writing this for this long a while—I felt it best that I step away for a little so that I could come back to the plot with a fresh perspective in mind. Now that I think about it, I probably should have told you guys. I wasn't fair to you. I do apologize.

Anyway, chapter seven's filled with a lot of talking. Now that most of those difficulties are out of the way, I can jump right into a whole lot of other fun things. This makes me very excited.

I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing—do leave behind something to say, I value my reader's perspective and constructive criticism is always welcome. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me and I'll do my best to answer as soon as I can.

Also, a very warm welcome to the lovely V, who's going to be acting as my beta from now on, which is incredibly exciting. I've never had a beta before. I love you, V, for your helpful thoughts and opinions. You've made things phenomenally easier.

And lastly, thank you to all the new readers, reviewers and followers, the mere fact that you actually want to be a part of this is incredibly appreciated.

And don't worry, I'll see you guys again soon enough—chapter eight might take a while, but you can be positive it's bound to be fun.

That's about it, I suppose.

I do hope you have a lovely day.

My warm regards,

R.


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